/- — 1 — ^ 

The 

XPEf^lME/JTA  L 

NoVel 


E/AILB 

Zola 


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THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL 


THE 

EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL 

AND   OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY 

EMILE    ZOLA 

Author  of  "The  Downfall"  (La  Debacle) 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH  BY 

BELLE  M.  SHERMAN 


NEW  YORK 
THE   CASSELL   PUBLISHING  CO. 

31  East  17TH  St.  (Union  Square) 


RU( 


Copyright,  1893,  by 
CASSELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 


THE   MERSHON   COMPANY  PRESS, 
RAHWAY,    N.  J. 


e. 


INTRODUCTION. 


Five  of  these  articles  first  appeared,  translated  into 
Russian,  in  the  Messager  de  V Europe^  a  St.  Petersburg 
review.  The  two  others,  entitled  "  The  Novel "  and 
"  Criticism,**  are  but  the  gathering  together  of  articles 
selected  from  a  large  number  published  in  Le  Bien 
Public  and  Le  Voltaire, 

Allow  me  to  publicly  express  my  gratitude  to  the 
great  nation  which  welcomed  me  so  warmly,  and 
adopted  me,  at  a  time  when  not  a  journal  in  Paris 
would  accept  what  I  wrote  and  everyone  was  my 
enemy  in  my  literary  battle.  Russia,  in  one  of  my 
hours  of  pain  and  discouragement,  revived  my  faith  in 
myself,  renewed  my  strength,  and  gave  me  a  public, 
and  that  the  most  critical  and  impassioned  of  publics. 
Her  criticism  of  my  writings  made  me  what  I  am 
to-day.  I  cannot  speak  of  her  without  emotion,  and 
I  shall  keep  her  in  eternal  remembrance. 

They  are  therefore  polemics,  manifestoes,  if  you 
will,  written  in  the  first  flush  of  the  idea,  without 
any  rhetorical  subtilities.  As  they  were  to  be  trans- 
lated into  another  tongue,  I  paid  little  attention  to 
their  literary  form.  My  first  intention  was  to  rewrite 
them  before  publishing  them  in  France.  But  on 
reading  them  over  I  realized  that  it  would  be  better 
to  leave  them  as  they  were,  with  their  faults  and  the 

V 

jyf69636 


VI  INIRODUCTION. 

outlines  of  their  rather  angular  style,  lest  I  should 
make  the  mistake  of  disfiguring  them.  I  send  them 
forth,  then,  as  they  have  returned  to  me,  encumbered 
with  repetitions,  loose  in  construction,  with  too  much 
simplicity  in  their  style,  too  much  dryness  in  their 
reasoning.  Doubts  assail  me,  and  I  ask  myself,  Is  it 
possible  that  these  articles  will  be  found  to  be  my  best 
work  ?  For  I  am  overcome  with  shame  when  I  think 
of  the  enormous  pile  of  romantic  rhetoric  which  lies 
behind  me. 

Emile  Zola. 


CONTENTS. 


The  Experimental  Novel, 

A  Letter  to  the  Young  People  of  France, 

Naturalism  on  the  Stage, 

The  Influence  of  Money  in  Literature, 

The  Novel  : 

The  Reality,  .... 

Personal  Expression, 

The  Critical  Formula  Applied  to  the  Novel, 

Description,  ..... 

Three  Debuts  : 

I.  Leon  Hennique, 

IL    J.    K.    HUYSMANS, 

III.  Paul  Alexis, 
Human  Documents,  .... 

"  Les  Fr^res  Zemganno  "  : 

The  Preface,       .... 
The  Book,      ..... 
Morality,        ..... 
Criticism  : 
Polemics  : 

I.  M.  Charles  Bigot, 
II.  M.  Armand  Silvestre, 
"  The  Realism,"  .  .  . 

The  "Parisian  Chronicles"  of  Sainte-Beuve, 
Hector  Berlioz,  .... 

Chaudes-Aigues  and  Balzac, 
Jules  Janin  and  Balzac, 
A  Roman  Prize  in  Literature, 
The  Contempt  in  which  Literature  is  Held, 
Obscene  Literature, 
The  Influence  of  the  Republic  in  Literature, 


PACK 

I 

57 
109 
161 

209 
217 
224 
231 

238 
245 
251 
259 

267 
276 
282 


291 

299 
306 

314 
322 
330 
342 
349 
356 
363 
373 


THE 

EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL. 


IN  my  literary  essays  I  have  often  spoken  of  the 
application  of  the  experimental  method  to  the  novel 
and  to  the  drama.  The  return  to  nature,  the  natural- 
istic evolution  which  marks  the  century,  drives  little 
by  little  all  the  manifestation  of  human  intelligence 
into  the  same  scientific  path.  Only  the  idea  of 
a  literature  governed  by  science  is  doubtless  a  sur- 
prise, until  explained  with  precision  and  understood. 
It  seems  to  me  necessary,  then,  to  say  briefly  and  to 
the  point  what  I  understand  by  the  experimental 
novel. 

I  really  only  need  to  adapt,  for  the  experimental 
method  has  been  established  with  strength  and  mar- 
velous clearness  by  Claude  Bernard  in  his  "  Introduc- 
tion k  I'Etude  de  la  M^decine  Experimentale."  This 
work,  by  a  savant  whose  authority  is  unquestioned, 
will  serve  me  as  a  solid  foundation.  I  shall  here  find 
the  whole  question  treated,  and  I  shall  restrict  myself 
to  irrefutable  arguments  and  to  giving  the  quotations 
which  may  seem  necessary  to  me.  This  will  then  be 
but  a  compiling  of  texts,  as  I  intend  on  all  points  to 
intrench  myself  behind  Claude  Bernard.  It  will  often 
be  but  necessary  for  me  to  replace  the  word  "  doctor  " 


J 


2  THE   EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL. 

by  the  word  *'  novelist,"  to  make  my  meaning  clear  and 
to  give  it  the  rigidity  of  a  scientific  truth. 

What  determined  my  choice,  and  made  me  choose 
"  L'Introduction  "  as  my  basis,  was  the  fact  that  med- 
icine, in  the  eyes  of  a  great  number  of  people,  is  still 
an  art,  as  is  the  novel.  Claude  Bernard  all  his  life  was 
searching  and  battling  to  put  medicine  in  a  scientific 
path,  ,  In  his  struggle  we  see  the  first  feeble  attempts 
of  a  science  to  disengage  itself  little  by  little  from  empir- 
icism,* and  to  gain  a  foothold  in  the  realm  of  truth, 
by  means  of  the  experimental  method.  Claude  Ber- 
nard demonstrates  that  this  method,  followed  in  the 
study  of  inanimate  bodies  in  chemistry  and  in  physics, 
should  be  also  used  in  the  study  of  living  bodies, 
in  physiology  and  medicine.  I  am  going  to  try  and 
prove  for  my  part  that  if  the  experimental  method 
leads  to  the  knowledge  of  physical  life,  it  should  also 
lead  to  the  knowledge  of  the  passionate  and  intel- 
lectual Hfe.  It  is  but  a  question  of  degree  in  the 
same  path  which  runs  from  chemistry  to  physiology, 
then  from  physiology  to  anthropology  and  to  sociol- 
ogy.    The  experimental  novel  is  the  goal. 

To  be  more  clear,  I  think  it  would  be  better  to  give 
a  brief  rdsum^  of  "  L'Introduction  "  before  I  com- 
mence. The  applications  which  I  shall  make  of  the 
texts  will  be  better  understood  if  the  plan  of  the  work 
and  the  matters  treated  are  explained. 

Claude  Bernard,  after  having  declared  that  medicine 
enters  the  scientific  path,  with  physiology  as  its  foun- 
dation, and  by  means  of  the  experimental  method,  first 

*Zola  uses  empiricism  in  this  essay  in  the  sense  of  "haphazard 
observation "  in  contrast  with  a  scientific  experiment  undertaken  to 
prove  a  certain  truth. — Tkanslator, 


v> 


\ 


^^  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  3 

^  explains  the  differences  which  exist  between  the 
^  sciences  of  observation  and  the  sciences  of  experiment. 
He  concludes,  finally,  that  experiment  is  but  provoked 
observation.  All  experimental  reasoning  is  based  on 
doubt,  for  the  experimentalist  should  have  no  precon- 
ceived idea,  in  the  face  of  nature,  and  should  always 
retain  his  liberty  of  thought.  He  simply  accepts 
the  phenomena  which  are  produced,  when  they  are 
proved. 

In  the  second  part  he  reaches  his  true  subject  and 
shows  that  the  spontaneity  of  living  bodies  is  not 
opposed  to  the  employment  of  experiment.  The 
difference  is  simply  that  an  inanimate  body  possesses 
merely  the  ordinary,  external  environment,  while  the 
essence  of  the  higher  organism  is  set  in  an  internal  and 
perfected  environment  endowed  with  constant  physico- 
chemical  properties  exactly  like  the  external  environ- 
ment ;  hence  there  is  an  absolute  determinism  in 
the  existing  conditions  of  natural  phenomena ;  for  the 
living  as  for  the  inanimate  bodies.  He  calls  determin- 
ism the  cause  which  determines  the  appearance  of  these 
phenomena.  This  nearest  cause,  as  it  is  called,  is  noth- 
ing more  than  the  physical  and  material  condition  of 
the  existence  or  manifestation  of  the  phenomena.  The 
end  of  all  experimental  method,  the  boundary  of  all 
scientific  research,  is  then  identical  for  living  and  for 
inanimate  bodies ;  it  consists  in  finding  the  relations 
which  unite  a  phenomenon  of  any  kind  to  its  nearest 
cause,  or,  in  other  words,  in  determining  the  conditions 
necessary  for  the  manifestation  of  this  phenomenon. 
Experimental  science  has  no  necessity  to  worry  itself 
about  the  ''  why  "  of  things ;  it  simply  explains  the 
"  how," 


4  THE   EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL, 

After  having  explained  the  experimental  considera- 
tions common  to  living  beings  and  to  inanimate,  Claude 
Bernard  passes  to  the  experimental  considerations 
which  belong  specially  to  living  beings.  The  great  and 
only  difference  is  this,  that  there  is  presented  to  our 
consideration,  in  the  organism  of  livings  beings,  a  har- 
monious group  of  phenomena.  He  then  treats  of 
practical  experiments  on  living  beings,  of  vivisection, 
of  the  preparatory  anatomical  conditions,  of  the  choice 
of  animals,  of  the  use  of  calculation  in  the  study  of 
phenomena,  and  lastly  of  the  physiologist's  labora- 
tory. 

Finally,  in  the  last  part  of  "  LTntroduction,"  he  gives 
some  examples  of  physiological  experimental  investi- 
gations in  support  of  the  ideas  which  he  has  formu- 
lated. He  then  furnishes  some  examples  of  experi- 
mental criticism  in  physiology.  In  the  end  he  indicates 
the  philosophical  obstacles  which  the  experimental 
doctor  encounters.  He  puts  in  the  first  rank  the  false 
application  of  physiology  to  medicine,  the  scientific 
ignorance  as  well  as  certain  illusions  of  the  medical 
mind.  Further,  he  concludes  by  saying  that  empirical 
medicine  and  experimental  medicine,  not  being  incom- 
patible, ought,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  inseparable  one 
from  the  other.  His  last  sentence  is  that  experimental 
medicine  adheres  to  no  medical  doctrine  nor  any  philo- 
sophical system. 

This  is,  very  broadly,  the  skeleton  of  "  LTntroduc- 
tion" stripped  of  its  flesh.  V  hope  that  this  rapid 
expose  will  be  sufficient  to  fill  up  the  gaps  which  my 
manner  of  proceeding  is  bound  to  produce  ;  for,  natu- 
rally, I  shall  cite  from  the  work  only  such  passages  as 
are  necessary  to  define  and  comment  upon  the  experi- 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  5 

mental  novel.  I  repeat  that  I  use  this  treatise  merely 
as  a  solid  foundation  on  which  to  build,  but  a  founda- 
tion very  rich  in  arguments  and  proofs  of  all  kinds. 
Experimental  medicine,  which  but  lisps  as  yet,  can 
alone  give  us  an  exact  idea  of  experimental  literature, 
which,  being  still  unhatched,  is  not  even  lisping. 


X 


I. 

THE  first  question  which  presents  itself  is  this:  Is 
experiment  possible  in  literature,  in  which  up  to 
the  present  time  observation  alone  has  been  employed  ? 
Claude  Bernard  discusses  observation  and  experi- 
ment at  great  length.  There  exists,  in  the  first  place,  a 
very  clear  Hne  of  demarcation,  as  follows  :  *'  The  name 
of  *  observer  '  is  given  to  him  who  applies  the  simple 
or  complex  process  of  investigation  in  the  study  of 
^  phenomena  which  he  does  not  vary,  and  which  he 
gathers,  consequently,  as  nature  offers  them  to  him  ; 
the  name  of  *  experimentalist '  is  given  to  him  who 
employs  the  simple  and  complex  process  of  investiga- 
tion to  vary  or  modify,  for  an  end  of  some  kind,  the 
natural  phenomena,  and  to  make  them  appear  under 
j  circumstances  and  conditions  in  which  they  are  not 
I  presented  by  nature."  For  instance,  astronomy  is  a 
science  of  observation,  because  you  cannot  conceive 
of  an  astronomer  acting  upon  the  stars  ;  while  chemis- 
Y-  try  is  an  experimental  science,  as  the  chemist  acts  upon 
nature  and  modifies  it.  This,  according  to  Claude  Ber- 
nard, is  the  only  true  and  important  distinction  which 
separates  the  observer  from  the  experimentalist. 

I  cannot  follow  him  in  his  discussion  of  the  different 
definitions  given  up  to  the  present  time.  As  I  have  said 
before,  he  finishes  by  coming  to  the  conclusion  that 
experiment  is  but  provoked  observation.  I  repeat 
his  words :  **  In  the  experimental  method  the  search 


•  The  experimental  novel.  1 

after  facts,  that  is  to  say,  investigation,  is  always 
accompanied  by  a  reason,  so  that  ordinarily  the 
experimentalist  makes  an  experiment  to  confirm  and 
verify  the  value  of  an  experimental  idea.  In  this  case 
you  can  say  that  experiment  is  an  observation  insti- 
gated for  the  purpose  of  verification." 

To  determine  how  much  observation  and  experi- 
menting there  can  be  in  the  naturalistic  novel,  I  only 
need  to  quote  the  following  passages : 

"  The  observer  relates  purely  and  simply  the  phe- 
nomena which  he  has  under  his  eyes.  .  .  He  should 
be  the  photographer  of  phenomena,  his  observation 
should  be  an  exact  representation  of  nature.  .  .  He 
listens  to  nature  and  he  writes  under  its  dictation.  But 
once  the  fact  is  ascertained  and  the  phenomenon 
observed,  an  idea  or  hypothesis  comes  into  his  mind, 
reason  intervenes,  and  the  experimentalist  comes 
forward  ^to  interpret  the  phenomenon.  The  experi- 
mentalist is  a  man  who,  in  pursuance  of  a  more  or  less 
probable,  but  anticipated,  explanation  of  observed  phe- 
nomena, institutes  an  experiment  in  such  a  way  that, 
according  to  all  probability,  it  will  furnish  a  result 
which  will  serve  to  confirm  the  hypothesis  or  precon- 
ceived idea.  The  moment  that  the  result  of  the  experi- 
ment manifests  itself,  the  experimentalist  finds  him- 
self face  to  face  with  a  true  observation  which  he  has 
called  forth,  and  which  he  must  ascertain,  as  all  obser- 
vation, without  any  preconceived  idea.  The  experi- 
mentalist should  then  disappear,  or  rather  transform 
himself  instantly  into  the  observer,  and  it  is  not  until 
after  he  has  ascertained  the  absolute  results  of  the 
experiment,  like  that  of  an  ordinary  observation,  that 
his  mind  comes  back  to    reasoning,    comparing,  and 


8  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

judging  whether  the  experimental  hypothesis  is 
verified  or  invaHdated  by  these  same  results." 

The  mechanism  is  all  there.  It  is  a  little  compli- 
cated, it  is  true,  and  Claude  Bernard  is  led  on  to  say  : 
"  When  all  this  passes  into  the  brain  of  a  savant  who 
has  given  himself  up  to  the  study  of  a  science  as  com- 
plicated as  medicine  still  is,  then  there  is  such  an 
entanglement  between  the  result  of  observation  and 
what  belongs  to  experiment  that  it  will  be  impossible 
and,  besides,  useless  to  try  to  analyze,  in  their  inextrica- 
ble mdange,  each  of  these  terms."  In  one  word,  it 
might  be  said  that  observation  "  indicates  "  and  that 
experiment  "  teaches." 

Now,  to  return  to  the  novel,  we  can  easily  see  that 
the  novelist  is  equally  an  observer  and  an  experimen- 
talist. The  observer  in  him  gives  the  facts  as  he  has 
observed  them,  suggests  the  point  of  departure,  displays 
the  solid  earth  on  which  his  characters  are  to  tread 
and  the  phenomena  to  develop.  Then  the  experi- 
mentalist appears  and  introduces  an  experiment,  that 
is  to  say,  sets  his  characters  going  in  a  certain  story  so 
as  to  show  that  the  succession  of  facts  will  be  such  as 
the  requirements  of  the  determinism  of  the  phenom- 
ena under  examination  call  for.  Here  it  is  nearly 
always  an  experiment  ^^ pour  voir,''  as  Claude  Bernard 
calls  it.  The  novelist  starts  out  in  search  of  a  truth. 
I  will  take  as  an  example  the  character  of  the  Baron 
Hulot,  in  "  Cousine  Bette,"  by^Balzac.  The  general 
fact  observed  by  Balzac  is  the  ravages  that  the 
amorous  temperament  of  a  man  makes  in  his  home,  in 
his  family,  and  in  society.  As  soon  as  he  has  chosen 
his  subject  he  starts  from  known  facts ;  then  he  makes 
his  experiment,  and  exposes  Hulot  to  a  series  of  trials. 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  9 

placing  him  amid  certain  surroundings  in  order  to 
exhibit  how  the  compHcated  machinery  of  his  passions 
works.  It  is  then  evident  that  there  is  not  only 
observation  there,  but  that  there  is  also  experiment ; 
as  Balzac  does  not  remain  satisfied  with  photographing 
the  facts  collected  by  him,  but  interferes  in  a  direct 
way  to  place  his  character  in  certain  conditions,  and  of 
thfese  he  remains  the  master.  The  problem  is  to  know 
what  such  a  passion,  acting  in  such  a  surrounding  and 
under  such  circumstances,  would  produce  from  the 
point  of  view  of  an  individual  and  of  society ;  and  an 
experimental  novel,  ''Cousine  Bette,"  for  example,  is 
simply  the  report  of  the  experiment  that  the  novelist 
conducts  before  the  eyes  of  the  public.  In  fact,  the 
whole  operation  consists  in  taking  facts  in  nature,  then 
in  studying  the  mechanism  of  these  facts,  acting  upon 
them,  by  the  modificat[on_jof_drcu^ 
roundings,  without  deviating  from  the  laws  of  nature. 
FmalTy,  you  possess  knowledge  of  the  man,  scientific 
knowledge  of  him,  in  both  his  individual  and  social 
relations. 

Doubtless  we  are  still  far  from  certainties  in  chem- 
istry and  even  physiology.  Nor  do  we  know  any 
more  the  reagents  which  decompose  the  passions,  ren- 
dering them  susceptible  of  analysis.  Often,  in  this 
essay,  I  shall  recall  in  similar  fashion  this  fact,  that 
the  experimental  novel  is  still  younger  than  experi- 
mental medicine,  and  the  latter  is  but  just  born. 
But  I  do  not  intend  to  exhibit  the  acquired  results, 
I  simply  desire  to  clearly  expose  a  method.  If  the 
experimental  novelist  is  still  groping  in  the  most 
obscure  and  complex  of  all  the  sciences,  this  does  not 
prevent  this  science  from  existing.     It  is  undeniable 


y 


lO  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

that  the  naturalistic  novel,  such  as  we  understand  it 
to-day,  is  a  real  experiment  that  a  novelist  makes  on 
man  by  the  help  of  observation. 

Besides,  this  opinion  is  not  only  mine,  it  is  Claude 
Bernard's  as  well.  He  says  in  one  place  :  "  In  practical 
life  men  but  make  experiments  on  one  another."  And 
again,  in  a  more  conclusive  way,  he  expresses  the  whole 
theory  of  the  experimental  novel :  "  When  we  reason 
on  our  own  acts  we  have  a  certain  guide,  for  we  are 
conscious  of  what  we  think  and  how  we  feel.  But  if 
we  wish  to  judge  of  the  acts  of  another  man,  and 
know  the  motives  which  make  him  act,  that  is  alto- 
gether a  different  thing.  Without  doubt  we  have 
before  our  eyes  the  movements  of  this  man  and  his 
different  acts,  which  are,  we  are  sure,  the  modes  of 
expression  of  his  sensibility  and  his  will.  Further,  we 
even  admit  that  there  is  a  necessary  connection 
between  the  acts  and  their  cause ;  but  what  is  this 
cause  ?  We  do  not  feel  it,  we  are  not  conscious  of  it, 
as  we  are  when  it  acts  in  ourselves ;  we  are  therefore 
obliged  to  interpret  it,  and  to  guess  at  it,  from  the 
movements  which  we  see  and  the  words  which  we  hear. 
We  are  obliged  to  check  off  this  man's  actions  one  by 
the  other  ;  we  consider  how  he  acted  in  such  a  circum- 
stance, and,  in  a  word,  we  have  recourse  to  the  experi- 
mental method.**  All  that  I  have  spoken  ofj  further 
back  is  summed  up  in  this  last  phrase,  which  is  written 
by  a  savant. 

I  shall  still  call  your  attention  to  another  illustration 
of  Claude  Bernard,  which  struck  me  as  very  forcible : 
"  The  experimentalist  is  the  examining  magistrate  of 
nature."  We  novelists  are  the  examining  magistrates 
of  men  and  their  passions. 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  li 

But  see  what  splendid  clearness  breaks  forth  when 
this  conception  of  the  application  of  the  experimental 
method  to  the  novel  is  adequately  grasped  and  is  car- 
ried out  with  all  the  scientific  rigor  which  the  matter 
permits  to-day.  A  contemptible  reproach  which  they 
heap  upon  us  naturalistic  writers  is  the  desire  to  be  / . 
solely  photographers.  We  have  in  vain  declared  that  J 
we  admit  the  necessity  of  an  artist's  possessing  an 
\  individual  temperament  and  a  personal  expression;  they 
continue  to  reply  to  us  with  these  imbecile  arguments, 
about  the  impossibility  of  being  strictly  true,  about 
the  necessity  of  arranging  facts  to  produce  a  work  of  art 
of  any  kind.  Well,  with  the  application  of  the  experi- 
mental method  to  the  novel  that  quarrel  dies  out. 
The  idea  of  experiment  carries  with  it  the  idea  of 
modification.  We  start,  indeed,  from  the  true  facts, 
which  are  our  indestructible  basis ;  but  to  show  the 
mechanism  of  these  facts  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  pro- 
duce and  direct  the  phenomena ;  this  is  our  share  of 
invention,  here  is  the  genius  in  the  book.  Thus 
without  having  recourse  to  the  questions  of  form  and 
of  style,  which  I  shall  examine  later,  I  maintain  even , 
at  this  point  that  we  must  modify  nature,  without/ 
departing  from  nature,  when  we  employ  the  experi-| 
mental  method  in  our  novels.  If  we  bear  in  mind  this) 
definition,  that  *'  observation  indicates  and  experiment 
teaches,"  we  can  even  now  claim  for  our  books  this 
great  lesson  of  experiment. 

The  writer's  office,  far  from  being  lessened,  grows 
singularly  from  this  point  of  view.  An  experiment, 
even  the  most  simple,  is  always  based  on  an  idea,  itself 
born  of  an  observation.  As  Claude  Bernard  says: 
"  The  experimental  idea  is  not  arbitrary,  nor  purely 


12  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

imaginary ;  it  ought  always  to  have  a  support  in  some 
observed  reaHty,  that  is  to  say,  in  nature."     It  is  on 
this  idea  and  on  doubt  that  he  bases  all  the  method. 
"The  appearance  of  the  experimental  idea,"  he  says 
further   on,  "  is   entirely  spontaneous  and   its  nature 
absolutely   individual,  depending   upon   the   mind   in 
which  it  originates ;  it  is  a  particular  sentiment,  a  quid 
proprium,  which  constitutes  the  originality,  the  inven- 
tion, and  the  genius  of  each  one."     Further,  he  makes 
doubt  the  great  scientific  lever.     "  The  doubter  is  the 
true  savant ;  he  doubts  only  himself  and  his  interpre- 
tations ;  he  believes  in  science  ;  he  even  admits  in  the 
experimental  sciences  a  criterion  or  a  positive  principle, 
the  determinism  of  phenomena,  which  is  absolute  in 
Hving  beings  as  in  inanimate  bodies.'"   Thus,  instead  of 
confining  the  novelist  within  narrow  bounds,  the  exper- 
imental method  gives  full  sway  to  his  intelligence  as 
^      a  thinker,  and  to  his  genius  as  a  creator.     He  must 
_see,    understand,    and    invent.     Some    observed    fact 
j  makes  the  idea  start  up  of  trying  an  experiment,  of 
I  writing  a  novel,  in  order  to  attain  to  a  complete  knowl- 
vedge  of  the  truth.     Then  when,  after  careful  considera- 
tion, he  has  decided  upon  the  plan  of  his  experiment, 
he  will  judge  the  results  at  each  step  with  the  freedom 
of  mind  of  a  man  who  accepts  only  facts  conformable 
to  the  determinism  of  phenomena.     He  set  out  from 
doubt  to  reach  positive  knowledge ;  and  he  will  not 
cease  to  doubt  until  the  mechanism  of  the  passion, 
—  taken  to  pieces  and  set  up  again  by  him,  acts  according 
to  the  fixed  laws  of  nature.     There  is  no  greater,  no 
more  magnificent  work  for  the  human  mind.    We  shall 
see,  further  on,  the  miseries  of  the  scholastics,  of  the 
makers   of   systems,  and  those   theorizing   about  the 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  13 

ideal,  compared  with  the  triumph  of  the  experimen- 
taHsts. 

I  sum  up  this  first  part  by  repeating  that  the  natural- 
istic novelists  observe  and  experiment,  and  that  all 
their  work  is  the  offspring  of  the  doubt  which  seizes 
them  in  the  presence  of  truths  little  known  and  phe- 
nomena unexplained,  until  an  experimental  idea  rudely 
awakens  their  genius  some  day,  and  urges  them  to 
make  an  experiment,  to  analyze  facts,  and  to  master 
them. 


11. 

SUCH,  then,  is  the  experimental  method.  But  for  a 
long  time  it  has  been  held  that  this  method  can- 
not be  applied  to  living  beings.  This  is  the  important 
point  in  the  question  that  I  am  going  to  examine  with 
Claude  Bernard.  The  reasoning  subsequently  will  be 
of  the  simplest ;  if  the  experimental  method  can  be 
carried  from  chemistry  and  physics  into  physiology  and  , 
medicine,  it  can  be  also  carried  from  physiology  into_  J 
the  naturalistic  novel. 

Cuvier — to  cite  the  name  of  only  one  scientific  man 
— pretended  that  experiment  as  applied  to  inanimate  \ 
bodies  could  not  be  used  with  living  beings  ;  physiol-  I 
ogy,  according  to  his  way  of  thinking,  should  be  purely 
a  science  of  observation  and  of  anatomical  deduction.  1 
The  vitalists  even  admit  a  vital  force  in  unceasing 
battle  with  the  physical  and  chemical  forces  neutraliz- 
ing their  action.  Claude  Bernard,  on  the  contrary, 
denies  all  presence  of  a  mysterious  force,  and  afifirms 
that  experiment  is  applicable  everywhere.  "  I  pro- 
pose," he  says,  "  to  establish  the  fact  that  the  science 
of  the  phenomena  of  life  can  have  no  other  basis  than 
the  science  of  the  phenomena  of  inanimate  bodies,  and 
that  there  are,  in  this  connection,  no  differences  between 
the  principles  of  biological  science  and  those  of  physics 
and  chemistry.  In  fact,  the  end  the  experimental 
method  proposes  is  the  same  everywhere ;  it  consists 
in  connecting,  by  experiment,  the  natural  phenomena 


.    THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL.  1 5 

to  their  conditions  of  existence  or  to  their  nearest 
causes." 

It  seems  to  me  useless  to  enter  into  the  complicated 
explanations  and  reasonings  of  Claude  Bernard.  I 
have  already  said  that  he  insists  upon  the  existence  of 
an  interior  condition  in  living  beings.  "  In  experi- 
menting on  inanimate  bodies,"  he  says,  "  there  is  only 
one  condition  to  be  considered,  that  is,  the  exterior 
earthly  condition ;  while  among  the  higher  living 
organisms  there  are  at  least  two  conditions  to  consider : 
the  exterior  condition  or  extra-organic,  and  the  interior 
or  inter-organic.  The  complexity  due  to  the  existence 
of  an  interior  organic  condition  is  the  only  reason  for 
the  great  difficulties  which  we  encounter  in  the  experi- 
mental determination  of  living  phenomena,  and  in  the 
application  of  the  means  capable  of  modifying  them." 
And  he  starts  out  from  this  fact  to  establish  the  prin- 
ciple that  there  are  fixed  laws  governing  the  physiolog- 
ical elements  plunged  into  an  interior  condition,  as  there 
are  fixed  laws  for  governing  the  chemical  elements 
which  are  steeped  in  an  exterior  condition.  Hence; 
you  can  experiment  on  a  living  being  as  well  as  on  an 
inanimate  one  ;  it  is  only  a  question  of  putting  your- 
self  in  the  desired  conditions. 

I  insist  upon  this,  because,  I  repeat  once  more,  the 
important  point  of  the  question  is  there.  Claude 
Bernard,  in  speaking  of  the  vitalists,  writes  thus: 
"  They  consider  life  as  a  mysterious  and  supernatural 
agent,  which  acts  arbitrarily,  free  from  all  determinism, 
and  they  condemn  as  materialists  all  those  who 
endeavor  to  trace  vital  phenomena  to  definite  organic 
and  physico-chemical  conditions.  These  are  false  ideas, 
which  it  is  not  easy  to  root  out  once  they  have  become 


1 6  THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL. 

domiciled  in  the  mind ;  only  the  progress  of  science 
can  dissipate  them."     And  he  lays  down  this  axiom : 
"With  living  beings  as  well  as  inanimate,  the  condi- 
tions of  the  existence  of  each  phenomenon  are  deter- 
mined in  an  absolute  manner."  / 
I    restrain    myself    for    fear    of    complicating    the 
argument  to  too  great  an  extent. 
_       Thus  you  see  the  progress  which  science  has  made. 
In  the  last  century  a  more  exact  application  of  the 
experimental  method  creates  physics  and  chemistry, 
which  then  are  freed  from  the  irrational  and  super- 
natural.    Men    discover    that    there   are   fixed    laws, 
thanks  to  analysis,  and  make  themselves  masters  of 
I  phenomena.     Then   a    new    point   is  gained.     Living 
I  beings,  in  which  the  vitalists  still  admitted  a  mysterious 
j  influence,  are  in  their  turn  brought  under  and  reduced 
to  the  general  mechanism  of  matter.      Science  proves 
that  the  existing  conditions  of  all  phenomena  are  the 
same  in  living  beings  as  in  inanimate  ;  and  from  that 
time  on  physiology  assumes  little  by  little  the  certainty 
of  chemistry  and  medicine.     But  are  we  going  to  stop 
there?      Evidently   not.      Wh^n   it  has   been    prnypH 
that  the  body  of  man  is  a  machine,  whose  machinery 
can  be  taken  apart  and  put  together  again  at  the  will 
of  the  experimenter,  then  we  can  pass  to  the  passion- 
ate and  intellectual  acts  of  man..    Then  we  shall  enter 
into  the  domain  which  up  to  the  present  has  belonged 
to  physiology  and  literature ;  it  will  be  the  decisive 
conquest  by  science  of  the  hypotheses  of  philosophers 
and   writers.      We  have  experimental  chemistry  and 
L^     medicine ;  we  shall  have  an  experimental  physiology, 
'     and  later^on  an  experimental  novel.    It  is  an  inevitable 
\     evolution,  the  goal  of  which  it  is  easy  to  see  to-day. 


THE   EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  1 7 

All  things  hang  together  ;  it  is  necessary  to  start  from 
the  determinism  of  inanimate  bodies  in  order  to  arrive 
at  the  determinism  of  living  beings  ;  and  since  savants 
like  Claude  Bernard  demonstrate  now  that  fixed  laws 
govern  the  human  body,  we  can  easily  proclaim,  with- 
out fear  of  being  mistaken,  the  hour  in  which  the  laws 
of  thought  and  passion  will  be  formulated  in  their  turn. 
A  like  determinism  will  govern  the  stones  of  the 
roadway  and  the  brain  of  man. 

This  opinion  is  to  be  found  in  "  LTntroduction." 
I  cannot  repeat  too  often  that  I  take  all  my  arguments 
from  Claude  Bernard's  work.  After  having  explained 
that  any  completely  special  phenomena  may  be  the 
result  of  the  more  and  more  complex  combination  and 
co-operation  of  the  organized  elements,  he  writes  the 
following :  "  I  am  persuaded  that  the  obstacles  which 
surround  the  experimental  study  of  psychological 
phenomena  are  in  great  measure  due  to  difficulties  of 
this  order ;  for  notwithstanding  the  marvelous  nature 
and  the  delicacy  of  their  manifestations,  it  is  impos- 
sible, so  it  seems  to  me,  not  to  bring  cerebral  phenom- 
ena, like  all  the  phenomena  of  living  bodies,  under  the 
laws  of  a  scientific  determinism."  This  is  clear. 
Later,  without  doubt,  science  will  find  this  deter- 
minism for  all  the  cerebral  and  sensory  manifestations 
of  man.  .. 

Now,  science  enters  into  the  domain  of  us  novelist^,  I 
who  are  to-day  the  analyzers- of  man,  inJiis 4ridividualr4        ^ 
and    social    rejations^      We    are    continuing,    by   ourl 
observations  and  experiments,  the  work  of  the  physiol-  \      a  . 
ogist,  who  has  continued  that  of  the  physicist  and  the    j    |h 
chemist.     We  are    making  use,   in  a  certain  way,  of    I 
scientific  psychology  to  complete  scientific  physiology ;     I 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL. 

^^^^Tid  to  finish  the  series  we  have  only  to  bring  into  our 
(  studies  of  nature  and  man  the  decisive  tool  of  the 
\  ;  experimental  method.  In  one  word,  we  should  operate 
\  ;  on  the  characters,  the  passions,  on  the  human  and 
social  data,  in  the  same  way  that  the  chemist  and  the 
physicist  operate  on  inanimate  beings,  and  as  the 
physiologist  operates  on  living  beings.  Determinism 
dominates  everything.  It  is  scientific  investigation,  it 
is  experimental  reasoning,  which  combats  one  by  one 
the  hypotheses  of  the  idealists,  and  which  replaces 
purely  imaginary  novels  by  novels  of  observation  and 
experiment. 

I  certainly  do  not  intend  at  this  point  to  formulate 
laws.  In  the  actual  condition  of  the  science  of  man 
the  obscurity  and  confusion  are  still  too  great  to  risk 
<  the  slightest  synthesis.  All  that  can  be  said  is  that 
there  is  an  absolute  determinism  for  all  human  phe- 
nomena. From  that  on  investigation  is  a  duty.  We 
have  the  method  ;  we  should  go  forward,  even  if  a 
whole  lifetime  of  effort  ends  but  in  the  conquest  of 
a  small  particle  of  the  truth.  Look  at  physiology : 
Claude  Bernard  made  grand  discoveries,  and  he  died 
protesting  that  he  knew  nothing,  or  nearly  nothing. 
In  each  page  he  confesses  the  difficulties  of  his  task. 
"  In  the  phenomenal  relations,"  he  says, ''  such  as  nature 
offers  them  to  us,  there  always  reigns  a  complexity 
more  or  less  great.  In  this  respect  the  complexity  of 
mineral  phenomena  is  much  less  great  than  that  of 
living  phenomena ;  this  is  why  the  sciences  restricted 
to  inanimate  bodies  have  been  able  to  formulate  them- 
selves more  quickly.  In  living  beings  the  phenomena 
are  of  enormous  complexity,  and  the  greater  mobility 
of   living    organisms  renders  them  more    difficult    to 


■THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL.  19 

grasp  and  to  define."  What  can  be  said,  then,  of  the 
difficulties  to  be  encountered  by  the  experimental 
novel,  which  adds  to  physiology  its  studies  upon  the 
most  delicate  and  complex  organs,  which  deals  with 
the  highest  manifestations  of  man  as  an  individual  and 
a  social  member  ?  Evidently  analysis  becomes  more 
complicated  here.  Therefore,  if  the  physiologist  is  but 
drawing  up  his  principles  to-day,  it  is  natural  that  the 
experimental  novelist  should  be  only  taking  his  first 
steps  :  We  foresee  it  as  a  sure  consequence  of  the 
scientific  evolution  of  the  century ;  but  it  is  impossible 
to  base  it  on  certain  laws.  Since  Claude  Bernard 
speaks  of  ''  the  restricted  and  precarious  truths  of 
biological  science,"  we  can  freely  admit  that  the  truths 
of  the  science  of  man,  from  the  standpoint  of  his  intel- 
lectual and  passionate  mechanism,  are  more  restricted 
and  precarious  still.  We  are  lisping  yet,  we  are  the 
last  comers,  but  that  should  be  only  one  incentive  the 
more  to  push  us  forward  to  more  exact  studies ;  jiow_ 
that  we  possess  the  tool,  the  experimental  method, 
our  ^JC^RJis  \Fry  "^^TiV^v-^^A^  the  dftrf^rn^ifii^nT~^f 

phenomena   and   to   make  ourselves  master  of  these 

phenomena.  "^      ~      ~~~~ 

Without  daring,  as  I  say,  to^-iamiulate  laws,  I  con- 
sider that  the  question  oR;^^rgmtyl>ks  a  great  influence  \/ 
in  the  intellectual  and  passionate  manifestations  of  man. 
I  also  attach  considerable  importance  to  the  surround-  s^ 
ings.  I  ought  to  touch  upon  Darwin's  theories  ;  but 
this  is  only  a  general  study  of  the  experimental 
method  as  applied  to  the  novel,  and  I  should  lose 
myself  were  I  to  enter  into  details.  I  will  only  say 
a  word  on  the  subject  of  surroundings.  We  have  just 
seen  the  great  importance  given  by  Claude  Bernard  to 


20  THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL. 

the  study  of  those  inter-organic  conditions  which  must 
be  taken  into  account  if  we  wish  to  find  the  deter- 
minism of  phenomena  in  living  beings.  Well,  then  ! 
'  in  the  study  of  a  family,  of  a  group  of  living  beings, 
I  think  that  the  social  condition  is  of  equal  importance. 
Some  day  the  physiologist  will  explain  to  us  the 
mechanism  of  the  thoughts  and  the  passions  ;  we  shall 
know  how  the  individual  machinery  of  each  man 
works;  how  he  thinks,  how  he  loves,  how  he  goes 
from  reason  to  passion  and  folly ;  but  these  phenom- 
ena, resulting  as  they  do  from  the  mechanism  of  the 
organs,  acting  under  the  influence  of  an  interior  condi- 
tion, are  not  produced  in  isolation  or  in  the  bare  void. 
/Mfiin  is  not  alone ;  he  lives  in  society,  in  a  social  condi- 
f  tion ;  and  consequently,  for  us  novelists,  this  social 
Vcondition  unceasingly  modifies  the  phenomena.  In- 
deed our  great  study  is  just  there,  in  the  reciprocal 
effect  of  society  on  the  individual  and  the  individual 
on  society.  For  the  physiologist,  the  exterior  and 
interior  conditions  are  purely  chemical  and  physical, 
and  this  aids  him  in  finding  the  laws  which  govern 
them  easily.  We  are  not  yet  able  to  prove  that  the 
social  condition  is  also  physical  and  chemical.  It  is 
that  certainly,  or  rather  it  is  the  variable  product  of 
a  group  of  living  beings,  who  themselves  are  absolutely 
submissive  to  the  physical  and  chemical  laws  which 
\  govern  alike  living  beings  and  inanimate.  From  this 
we  shall  see  that  we  can  act  upon  the  social  conditions, 
in  acting  upon  the  phenomena  of  which  we  have  made 
ourselves  master  in  man.  And  this  is  what  constitutes 
the  experimental  novel :  to  possess  a  knowledge  of 
the  mechanism  of  the  phenomena  inherent  in  man,  to 
show   the   machinery  of   his  intellectual  and  sensory 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  21 

manifestations,  under  the  influences  of  heredity  and 
environment,  such  as  physiology  shall  give  them  to  us, 
>  and  then  finally  to  exhibit  man  living  in  social  condi- 
tions produced  by  himself,  which  he  modifies  daily, 
and  in  the  heart  of  which  he  himself  experiences 
a  continual  transformation.  Thus,  then,  we  lean  on 
physiology ;  we  take  man  from  the  hands  of  the 
physiologist  solely,  in  order  to  continue  the  solution  of 
the  problem,  and  to  solve  scientifically  the  question  of 
how  men  behave  when  they  are  in  society. 

These  general  ideas  will  be  sufficient  to  guide  us 
to-day.  Later  on,  when  science  is  farther  advanced, 
when  the  experimental  novel  has  brought  forth  decisive 
results,  some  critic  will  explain  more  precisely  what  I 
have  but  indicated  to-day. 

Elsewhere  Claude  Bernard  confesses  how  difficult  it 
is  to  apply  the  experimental  method  to  living  beings. 
"  The  living  body,''  he  says,  ^^  especially  among  the 
higher  animals,  never  falls  into  chemical  or  physical 
indlfferehcF  with  the  exterior  conditions ;  IF  possesses 
an  mcessant  movement,  an  organic  evolution  appaf- 
ently  spontaneous  andLronsTan£;.ajid^,nQ£^ 
th e ^fact-that.  this  evolution  has,.iieed^o£  exterior  circum- 
stances to  manifest  itself,  it  is,  however,  independent  in 
its  course  an3~lnovement."  And  he  concludes  as  I 
haveT  "  In  short,  it"is  only  in  the  physical  and  chem- 
ical conditions  of  the  interior  that  we  shall  find  the-^ 
principle  that  governs  the  exterior  phenomena  of  life." 
But  whatever  complexities  may  present  themselves 
and  even  when  extraordinary  phenomena  are  produced, 
the  application  of  the  experimental  method  is  impera- 
tive. If  the  phenomena  of  life  have  a  complexity  and 
an  apparent  difference  from  those  of  inanimate  bodies, 


)C' 


3 


> 


22  2^ HE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

they  do  not  offer  this  difference,  except  by  reason  of 
determined  or  determinable  conditions  which  belong  to 
them.  Therefore,  even  should  the  sciences  dealing 
with  life  differ  from  the  others  in  their  application  and 
in  their  special  laws,  they  are  not  to  be  distinguished 
by  their  scientific  method." 

I  must  say  one  word  as  to  the  limits  which  Claude 
Bernard  assigns  to  science.  According  to^  him  we 
shall  always  be J^aQrajitJDLL±h£...!lwhxlL  Qf_thm 
canonly  know  the  "  how.''  It  is  this  that  he  expresses 
in  the  following  terms :  "  The  nature  of  our  minds 
urges  us  to  seek  the  essence  or  the  *  why '  of  things.  In 
this  we  see  further  than  the  goal  it  has  been  given  us  to 
attain  to  ;  for  experiment  soon  teaches  us  that  we  must 
not  go  beyond  the  '  how  * ;  that  is  to  say,  beyond  the 
nearest  cause  or  the  condition  of  the  existence  of  any 
phenomenon."  Further  on  he  gives  this  example  :  ''  If 
we  can  discover  '  why '  opium  and  its  alkaloids  pro- 
duce sleep,  we  shall  know  the  mechanism  of  such 
slumber,  and  know  '  how  *  opium  or  its  essence  produces 
sleep  ;  for  slumber  only  takes  place  because  the  active 
substance  is  about  to  put  itself  in  contact  with  certain 
organic  elements  which  it  modifies."  The  practical 
conclusion  of  all  this  is  the  following:  ''Science  has^^ 
precisely  the  privilege  of  teaching  us  what  we  are  igno- 
rant of,  through  its  substitution  of  reason  and  experi- 
ment for  sentiment,  and  by  showing  us  clearly  the  limit 
of  our  actual  knowledge.  But,  by  a  marvelous  compen- 
sation, in  proportion  as  science  humbles  our  pride,  it 
strengthens  our  power."  All  these  considerations  are 
strictly  applicable  to  the  experimental  novel.  In  order 
not  to  lose  itself  in  philosophical  speculations,  in  order 
to  replace  idealistic  hypothesis  by  a  slow  conquest  of  the 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  ^3 

unknown,  it  must  continue  the  search  after  the  *'  how  "     .    -< 
of  things.     This  is  its  exact  role,  and   it   is  from   this  ^^ 
that  it  must  draw,  as  we  are  going  to  see,  its  reason      / 
for  being  and  its  moral.  -^^ 

I  have  reached  this  point :  the  experimental  novel 
is  a  consequence  of  the  scientific  evolution  of  the  cen- 
tury ;  it  continues  and  completes  physiology,  which 
itself  leans  for  support  on  chemistry  and  medicine  ;  it 
substitutes  for  the  study  of  the  abstract  and  the  meta- 
physical man  the  study  of  the  natural  man,  governed 
by  physical  and  chemTcaT  laws,  ana  modmed  by  the 
influences  of  his  surroundings ;  it  is  in  one  word  the 
literature  of  our  scientific  age,  as  the  classical  and 
romantic  literature  corresponded  to  a  scjiolastic  and 
theological  age.  Now  I  will  pass  to  the  great  question 
of  the  application  of  all  this,  and  of  its  justification. 


III. 

THE  object  of  the  experimental  method  in  physiol- 
ogy and  in  medicine  is  to  study  phenomena  in 
order  to  become  their  master.  Claude  Bernard  in  each 
page  of  "  L'Introduction  "  comes  back  to  this  idea. 
He  declares  :  "  All  natural  philosophy  is  summed  up  in 
this :  To  know  the  laws  which  govern  phenomena. 
The  experimental  problem  reduces  itself  to  this :  To 
foresee  and  direct  phenomena."  Farther  on  he  gives 
an  example :  "  It  will  not  satisfy  the  experimental 
doctor,  though  it  may  the  merely  empirical  one,  to 
know  that  quinine  cures  fever ;  the  essential  thing  is 
to  know  what  fever  is,  and  to  understand  the  mechanism 
by  which  quinine  cures.  All  this  is  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  the  experimental  doctor;  for  as  soon 
as  he  knows  it  positively,  the  fact  that  quinine  cures 
fever  will  no  longer  be  an  isolated  and  empirical  fact, 
but  a  scientific  fact.  This  fact  will  be  connected  then 
with  the  conditions  which  bind  it  to  other  phenomena, 
and  we  shall  be  thus  led  to  the  knowledge  of  the  laws 
of  the  organism,  and  to  the  possibility  of  regulating 
their  manifestations."  A  striking  example  can  be 
quoted  in  the  case  of  scabies.  "  To-day  the  cause  of 
this  disease  is  known  and  determined  experimentally  ; 
the  whole  subject  has  become  scientific,  and  empiricism 
has  disappeared.  A  cure  is  surely  and  without  excep- 
tion effected  when  you  place  yourself  in  the  conditions 
known  by  experiment  to  produce  this  end." 


.  THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL.  i$ 

This,  then,  is  the  end,  this  is  the  purpose  in  physiol-  i  .^ 
ogy  and  in  experimental  medicine  :  to  make  one's  self 
master  of  life  in  order  to  be  able  to  direct  it.  Let  us 
suppose  that  science  advances  and  that  the  conquest  of 
the  unknown  is  finally  completed ;  the  scientific  age 
which  Claude  Bernard  saw  in  his  dreams  will  then  be 
realized.  When  that  time  comes  the  doctor  will  be  the 
master  of  maladies ;  he  will  cure  without  fail  ;  his 
influence  upon  the  human  body  will  conduce  to  the 
welfare  and  strength  of  the  species.  We  shall  enter 
upon  a  century  in  which  man,  grown  more  powerful, 
will  make  use  of  nature  and  will  utilize  its  laws  to  pro- 
duce upon  the  earth  the  greatest  possible  amount  of 
justice  and  freedom.  There  is  no  nobler,  higher,  nor  > 
grander  end.  Here  is  our  role  as  intelligent  beings: 
to  penetrate  to  the  wherefore  of  things,  to  become 
superior  to  these  things,  and  to  reduce  them  to  a  con- 
dition of  subservient  machinery. 

Well,  this  dream  of  the  physiologist  and  the  experi- 
mental   doctor     is    also    that    of    the   novelist,    who 
employs  the  experimental  method  in  his  study  of  man 
as  a  simple  individual  and  as  a  social  animal.     Their 
object  is  ours ;  we  also  desire  to  master  certain  phe- 
nomena  of   an  intellectual  and  personal  order,  to  be 
able  to  direct  them.     We  are,  in  a  word,  experimental  V 
moralists,  showing  by  experiment  in  what  way  a  pas-  / 
sion  acts  in  a  certain  social    condition.     The  day  iiM 
which  we  gain  control  of  the  mechanism  of  this  passion<K<^ 
we  can  treaTTFand  re^uce"it7^  at  least  make  it  as  r 
inoffensive  as  possible.     And  in  this  consists  the  prac-  i^ 
tical  utility  and  high  morality  of  our  naturalistic  works, 
which  experiment  on  man,  and  which  dissect  piece  by 
piece  this  human  machinery  in  order  to  set  it  going 


V 


26  THE   EXPERtMEMTAL  NOVEL. 

through  the  influence  of  the  environment.  When 
things  have  advanced  further,  when  we  are  in  posses- 
sion of  the  different  laws,  it  will  only  be  necessary  to 
work  upon  the  individuals  and  the  surroundings  if  we 
'  wish  to  find  the  best  social  condition.  In  this  way  we 
shall  construct  a  practical  sociology,  and  our  work  will 
be  a  help  to  political  and  economical  sciences.  I  do 
not  know,  I  repeat,  of  a  more  noble  work,  nor  of  a 
grander  application.  To  be  the  master  of  good  and 
evil,  to  regulate  life,  to  regulate  society,  to  solve  in 
time  all  the  problems  of  socialism,  above  all,  to  give 
justice  a  solid  foundation  by  solving  through  experi- 
ment the  questions  of  criminality — is  not  this  being  the 
most  useful  and  the  most  moral  workers  in  the  human 
workshop  ? 

Let  us  compare,  for  one  instant,  the  work  of   the 
idealistic  novelists  to  ours ;  and  here  this  word  idealis- 
tic refers  to  writers  who  cast  aside  observation  and 
experiment,  and  base  their  works  on  the  supernatural 
'  and  the  irrational,  who  admit,  in  a  word,  the  power  of 
I  mysterious  forces  outside  of   the  determinism  of  the 
\  phenometta^l  Claude  Bernard  shall  reply  to  this  for 
^^-Tne  :  "  What  distinguishes  experimental  reasoning  from 
scholastic  is  the  fecundity  of  the  one  and  the  sterility 
of  the  other.     It  is  precisely  the  scholastic,  who  believes 
he  has  absolute  certitude,  who  attains  to  no  results. 
This  is  easily  understood,  since  by  his  belief  in  an  abso- 
lute principle  he  puts  himself    outside  of  nature,   in 
!    which  everything  is  relative.     It  is,  on  the  contrary, 
the  experimenter,  who  is  always  in  doubt,  who  does  not 
think  he  possesses  absolute  certainty  about  anything, 
who  succeeds  in  mastering  the  phenomena  which  sur- 
round him,  and  in  increasing  his  power  over  nature."    By 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL,  27 

and  by  I  shall  return  to  this  question  of  the  ideal, 
which  is  in  truth  but  the  question  of  indeterminism. 
Claude  Bernard  says  truly  :  "  The  intellectual  conquest 
of  man  consists  in  diminishing  and  driving  back  inde- 
terminism, and  so,  gradually,  by  the  aid  of  the  experi- 
mental method,  gaining  ground  for  determinism."  We 
experimenta,l  novelists  have^the-^a«ve^lask ;  our  work 
is  togo_froxn--theJkiiQW2__to  unknown,  to  make  our- 
selves masters  of.liatjjLre7wITrie~The  idealistic  novelists 
deliberately  remain  in  the  unknown,  through  all  sorts 
of  religious  and  philosophical  prejudices,  under  the 
astounding  pretense  that  the  unknown  is  nobler  and 
more  beautiful  than  the  known.  If  our  work,  often 
cruel,  if  our  terrible  pictures  needed  justification,  I 
should  find,  indeed,  with  Claude  Bernard  this  argument 
conclusive :  "  You  will  never  reach  really  fruitful  and 
luminous  generalizations  on  the  phenomena  of  life  until 
you  have  experimented  yourself  and  stirred  up  in  the 
hospital,  the  amphitheater,  and  the  laboratory  the 
fetid  or  palpitating  sources  of  life.  If  it  were  necessary 
for  me  to  give  a  comparison  which  would  explain  my 
sentiments  on  the  science  of  life,  I  should  say  that  it  is 
a  superb  salon,  flooded  with  hght,  which  you  can  only 
reach  by  passing  through  a  long  and  nauseating 
kitchen." 

I  insist  upon  the  word  which  1  have  employed,  that 
of  experimental  novelists  as  applied  to  natuj;aljstic 
novelists."' One' page  of  "  L'Introduction  "  struck  me  as 
being  very  forcible,  that  in  which  the  author  speaks 
of  the  vital  "  circulus."  "  The  muscular  and  nervous 
organs  preserve  the  activity  of  the  organs  which  make 
the  blood ;  but  the  blood,  in  its  turn,  nourishes  the 
organs  which  produce  it.     There  is  in  this  a  social  or 


28  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

organic  solidarity,  which  keeps  up  a  perpetual  move- 
ment, until  the  derangement  or  cessation  of  the  action 
of  a  necessary  and  vital  element  has  broken  the  equi- 
librium or  brought  about  some  trouble  or  stoppage  in 
the  play  of  the  animal  machinery.     The  problem  of 
the  experimentalist  doctor  consists  in  finding  the  cause 
of  any  organic  disarrangement,  that  is  to  say,  in  seizing 
the  initial  phenomenon.     We  shall  see  how  a  disloca- 
tion of  the  organism,  or  a  disarrangement  the  most 
complex  in  appearance,  can  be  traced  to  a  simple  initial 
cause,  which  calls  forth  immediately  the  most  complex 
effects."     All  that  is  necessary  here  is  to  change  the" 
words  experimental  doctor  to  experimental  novelist, 
and  this  passage  is  exactly  applicable  to  our  natur^j 
istic  literature.     The  social  circulus  is  identical  with  tL^-^^ 
vital  circulus  ;  in  society,  as  in  human  beings,  a  solidar-      j 
ity  exists  which  unites  the  different  members  and  tht^  ^ 
different  organisms  in  such  a  way  that  if  one  organ  C^ 
becomes    rotten  many  others  are  tainted  and  a  very 
complicated   disease    results.     Hence,   in   our   novels,    ,- 
when  we   experiment   on  a   dangerous  wound  which 
poisons  society,  we  proceed  in  the  same  way  as   the 
experimentalist  doctor  ;  we  try  to  find  the  simple  initial 
cause  in  order  to  reach  the  complex  causes  of  which 
the  action  is  the  result.     Go  back  once  more  to  the 
example  of  Baron  Hulot  in  ''■  Cousine  Bette."     See  the 
final  result,  the  denouement  of  the  novel :  an  entire 
family  is  destroyed,  all  sorts  of  secondary  dramas  are 
produced,  under  the  action  of  Hulofs  amorous   tem- 
perament.    It  is  there,  in  this  temperament,  that  the 
initial  cause  is  found.     One  member,  Hulot^  becomes 
rotten,  and  immediately  all  around  him  are  tainted,  the 
social  circulus  is  interrupted,  the  health  of  that  society 


THE   EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL.  29 

is  compromised.  What  emphasis  Balzac  lays  on  the 
character  of  Baron  Hulot ;  with  what  scrupulous  care 
he  analyzes  him !  The  experiment  deals  with  him 
chiefly,  because  its  object  is  to  master  the  symptoms  of 
this  passion  in  order  to  govern  it.  Suppose  that  Hu/ot 
is  cured,  or  at  least  restrained  and  rendered  inoffensive, 
immediately  the  drama  ceases  to  have  any  longer  any 
raison  d'etre ;  the  equilibrium,  or  more  truly  the 
health,  of  the  social  body  is  again  established.  Thus 
the  naturalistic  novelists  are  really  experimental  mor- 
alists. 

And  I  reach  thus  the  great  reproach  with  which 
they  think  to  crush  the  naturalistic  novelists,  by  treat- 
ing them  as  fatalists.  How  many  times  have  they 
wished  to  prove  to  us  that  as  soon  as-^we  did  not 
arrept^free  jvi)lj  that  as  soon  as  man  was  no  mo^te  Lo  U?" 

lan  a  living  machine,  acting  under  the  influence  of 
heredity  and  surroundings,  we  should  fall  into  gross 
fatalism,  we  should  debase  humanity  to  the  rank  of 
a  troop  marching  under  the  baton  of  destiny.  It  is 
necessary  to  define  our  terms  :  we  are  not  fatalists,  we 
are  determinists,  which  is  not  at  all  the  "same  thing.  y^ 

Claude  Bernard  explains  the  two  terms  very  plainly  '-y^y^ 
'*  We  have  given  the  name  of  determinism  to  the  nestf-   /^ 
est  or  determining  cause  of   phenomena.     We  never' 
act  upon  the  essence  of  phenomena  in  nature,  but  only 
on  their  determinism,  and   by  this  very  fact,  that  we_ 
act   upon  it,  determinism  differs  from  fatalism,  upon 
which  we  could  not  act  at  all.     Fatalism  assumes  that 
the  appearance  of  any  phenomenon  is  necessary  apart  \S 
from  its  conditions,  while  determinism  is  just  the  con- 
dition essential  for  the  appearance  of  any  phenomenon, 
and    such    appearance    is   never    forced.      Once   the 


30  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

search  for  the  determinism  of  phenomena  is  placed  as 
a  fundamental  principle  of  the  experimental  method, 
there  is  no  longer  either  materialism,  or  spiritualism, 
or  inanimate    matter,  or  living  matter ;   there  remain 
but  phenomena  of  which  it  is  necessary  to  determine 
I    the  conditions,  that  is  to  say,  the  circumstances  which 
play,  by  their  proximity  to  these  phenomena,  the  r61e 
of  nearest  cause."     This  is  decisive.     All  we  do  is  to 
apply  this  method  in  our  novels,  and  we  are  the  deter- 
minists  who  experimentally  try  to  determine  the  con- 
dition  of  the   phenomena,  without  departing    in  our 
investigations   from   the  laws  of  nature.      As   Claude 
'\  Bernard  very  truly  says,  the  moment  that  we  can  act, 
jand   that   we    do   act,  on   the   determining   cause   of 
i  phenomena — by    modifying    their    surroundings,    for 
I  example — we   cease   to  be    fatalists. 

Here  you  have,  then,  the  moral  purpose  of  the 
experimental  novelist  clearly  defined.  I  have  often 
/  said  that  we  do  not  have  to  draw  a  conclusion  from 
j  our  works  ;  and  this  means  that  our  works  carry  their 
conclusion  with  them.  An  experimentaHst  has  no 
need  to  conclude,  because,  in  truth,  experiment  con- 
cludes for  him.  A  hundred  times,  if  necessary,  he  will 
repeat  the  experiment  before  the  public ;  he  will 
explain  it ;  but  he  need  neither  become  indignant  n( 
approve  of  it  personally ;  such  is  the  truth,  such  is  the\ 

I  j  \  way  phenomena  work ;   it  is   for   society   to   produce 

I I  j  or  not  to  produce  these  phenomena,  according  as  the 
1*1  result  is  useful  or  dangerous.     You  cannot  imagine,  cCs" 

I  have  said  elsewhere,  a  savant  being  provoked  with 
azote  because  azote  is  dangerous  to  life ;  he  suppresses 
azote  when  it  is  harmful,  and  not  otherwise.  As  our 
power  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  a  savant,  as  we  are 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  3 1 

experimentalists  without  being  practitioners,  we  ought! 
to  content  ourselves  with  searching  out  the  deter- i 
minism  of  social  phenomena,  and  leaving  to  legislators  " 
and  to  men  of  affairs  the  care  of  controlling  sooner  or 
later  these  phenomena  in  such  a  way  as  to  develop 
the  good  and  reject  the  bad,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
their  utility  to  man. 

In  our  role  as  experimental  moralists  we  show  the 
mechanism  of  the  useful  and  the  useless,  we  disengage 
the  determinism  of  the  human  and  social  phenomena 
so   that,   in   their  turn,   the   legislators   can   one   day 
dominate  and  control  these  phenomena.     In  a  word^ 
we  are  working  with  the  whole  country  toward  that   I 
great  object,  the  conquest  of  nature  and  the  increase  I 
of  man's  pDwet-a  Jiundredfold:      Compare  with  ours  -^  y^ 
the  work  of  the  idealistic  writers,  who  rely  upon  the 
irrational  and  the  supernatural,  and  whose  every  flight 
upward  is  followed  by  a  deeper  fall  into  metaphysical    ^  y 
chaos.     We   are   the    ones  who   possess  strength  and 
•  morality. 


IV. 

1HAVE  said  before  that  I  chose  "  L'Introduction  " 
because  medicine  is  still  looked  upon  by  many  as 
an  art.  Claude  Bernard  proves  that  it  ought  to  be 
a  science,  and  in  his  book  we  see  the  birth  of  a  science, 
a  very  instructive  spectacle  in  itself,  and  which  shows 
us  that  the  scientific  domain  is  extending  and  con- 
^quering  all  the  manifestations  of  human  intelligence, 
^nce  medicine,  which  was  an  art,  is  becoming  a  science, 
why  should  not  literature  also  become  a  science  by 
jueans  of  the  experimental  method  ? 

It  must  be  remarked  that  all  things  hang  together : 
If  the  territory  of  the  experimental  doctor  is  the  body 
of  man,  as  shown  in  the  phenomena  of  his  different 
organs  both  in  their  normal  and  pathological  condition, 
our  territory  is  equally  the  body  of  man,  as  shown  by 
his  sensory  and  cerebral  phenomena,  both  in  their 
normal  and  pathological  condition.  If  we  are  no1 
satisfied  with  the  metaphysical  man  of  the  classical  age 
we  must,  perforce,  take  into  consideration  the  new  ideas 
on  nature  and  on  life,  with  which  our  age  has  become  ^, 
imbued.  We  continue  necessarily,  I  repeat,  the  work 
of  the  physiologist  and  the  doctor,  who  have  con- 
tinued, in  their  turn,  that  of  the  physician  and  the 
chemist.  Hence  we  enter  into  the  domain  of  science. 
I  will  not  touch  on  the  question  of  sentiment  and  form, 
but  will  reserve  that  for  another  time. 

Let   us    see    first  what   Claude  Bernard   says  about 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  33 

medicine  :  "  Certain  doctors  contend  that  medicine  can 
only  be  conjectural,  and  they  conclude  that  a  doctor  is 
an  artist,  who  ought  to  make  up  for  the  indeterminism 
in  particular  cases  by  his  genius  and  his  personal  tact. 
All  sciences  have  necessarily  commenced  by  being 
conjectural ;  there  are  still  to-day  in  every  science  con- 
jectural parts.  Medicine  is  still  nearly  all  conjecture. 
I  do  not  deny  that ;  but  I  only  want  to  say  that 
modern  science  should  make  an  effort  to  come  out  of 
this  provisionary  state,  which  does  not  constitute 
a  definite  scientific  condition — not  any  more  for  med- 
icine than  for  the  other  sciences.  The  scientific  con- 
dition will  be  longer  in  taking  shape  and  more  difficult 
to  obtain  in  medicine  by  reason  of  the  complexities  of 
its  phenomena ;  but  the  end  of  the  medical  savant  is 
to  reduce  in  his  science,  as  in  all  the  others,  the  inde- 
terminate to  the  determinate."  The  mechanism  of 
the  birth  and  the  development  of  a  science  is  here 
clearly  defined.  Men  still  look  upon  the  doctor  as  an 
artist,  because  there  is  in  medicine  an  enormous  place 
still  left  to  conjecture.  Naturally,  the  novelist  merits 
still  more  the  name  of  artist,  as  he  finds  himself  buried 
still  deeper  in  the  indeterminate.  If  Claude  Bernard 
confesses  that  the  complexity  of  its  phenomena  will 
prevent  medicine,  for  a  long  time  yet,  from  arriving  at 
a  scientific  state,  what  shall  we  say  of  the  experimental 
novel,  in  which  the  phenomena  are  much  more  com- 
plicated still  ?  But  this  does  not  prevent  the  novel 
from  entering  upon  the  scientific  pathway,  obedient  to 
the  general  evolution  of  the  century. 

Moreover,  Claude  Bernard  himself  has  indicated  the 
evolutions  of  the  human  mind.  "  The  human  mind," 
he  says,  *'  at  various  periods  of  its  progress  has  passed 


34  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

successively  through  feeling,  reason,  and  experiment. 
First,  feeling  alone,  dominating  reason,  created  the 
truths  of  faith,  that  is  to  say,  theology.  Reason,  or 
philosophy,  becoming  afterward  the  mistress,  brought 
forth  scholasticism.  Finally,  experiment,  that  is  to 
say,  the  study  of  natural  phenomena,  taught  man  that 
the  truths  of  the  exterior  world  were  to  be  found 
formulated,  in  the  first  place,  neither  in  reason  nor  in 
feeling.  These  last  are,  indeed,  our  indispensable 
guides,  but  to  obtain  the  truth  it  is  necessary  to 
descend  into  the  objective  reality  of  things,  where  they 
lie  concealed  under  their  phenomenal  form.  Thus  it  is 
that  in  the  natural  progress  of  things  the  experimental 
method  appears,  which  sums  up  the  whole,  and  which 
supports  itself  successfully  on  the  three  branches  of 
this  imtnovable  tripod  :  feeling,  reason,  and  experiment. 
In  the  search  after  truth  by  means  of  this  method, 
feeling  has  always  the  initiative  ;  it  engenders  the  idea 
a  priori  ox  intuition;  reason,  or  the  reasoning  power, 
immediately  develops  the  idea  and  deduces  its  logical 
consequences.  But  if  feeling  must  be  guided  by  the 
light  of  reason,  reason  in  its  turn  must  be  guided  by 
experiment." 

I  have  given  this  passage  entire,  as  it  is  of  the  great- 
est importance.  It  shows  clearly  the  role  that  the 
personality  of  the  novelist  should  play,  apart  from  the 
style^  Smce  feeling  is  the  starting  point  of  the  experi- 
mental method,  since  reason  subsequently  intervenes  to 
end  in  experiment,  and  to  be  controlled  by  it,  the  genius 
of  the  experimentalist  dominates  everything,  and  this 
is  what  has  made  the  experimental  method,  so  inert  in 
other  hands,  such  a  powerful  tool  in  the  hands  of 
Claude  Bernard.     I  have  said  the  word  :  method  is  but 


.  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  35 

the  tool ;  it  is  the  workman,  it  is  the  idea,  which  he 
brings,  which  makes  the  chef-d'oeuvre.  I  have  already- 
quoted  these  Hnes:  "  It  is  a  particular  feeling,  a  quid 
proprium,  which  constitutes  the  originality,  the  inven- 
tion, or  the  genius  of  each  one."  This,  then,  is  the  part 
taken  by  genius  in  the  experimental  novel.  As  Claude 
Bernard  says  again :  "  The  idea  is  the  seed ;  the 
method  is  the  soil  which  furnishes  the  conditionsfor 
developing  and  prospering  it,  and  bringing  fortlT^its 
best  frurEgpa^^^^^rdingTo  nature/^*  THuseverything  is 
'-reduced'toraTquestion  ofmethod.  If  you  are  content 
to  remain  in  the  a  priori  idea,  and  enjoy  your  own 
feelings  without  finding  any  basis  for  it  in  reason  or 
any  verification  in  experiment,  you  are  a  poet ;  you 
venture  upon  hypotheses  which  you  cannot  prove ;  you 
are  struggling  vainly  in  a  painful  indeterminism,  and  in 
a  way  that  is  often  injurious.  Listen  to  these  lines  of 
"  LTntroduction  " :  "  Man  is  naturally  a  metaphysician 
and  proud  ;  he  believes  that  the  idealistic  creations  of 
his  brain,  which  coincide  with  his  feelings,  represent 
the  reality.  Thus  it  follows  that  the  experimental 
method  is  not  innate  and  natural  to  man,  for  it  is  only- 
after  having  wandered  for  a  long  time  among  theolog- 
ical and  scholastical  discussions  that  he  ends  by  recog- 
nizing the  sterility  of  his  efforts  in  this  path.  Man 
then  perceives  that  he  cannot  dictate  laws  to  nature, 
because  he  does  not  possess  in  himself  the  knowledge 
and  the  criterion  of  exterior  things  ;  he  realizes 
that  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  truth  he  must,  on 
the  contrary,  study  the  natural  laws  and  submit  his 
ideas,  if  not  his  reason,  to  experiment,  that  is  to  say, 
to  the  criterion  of  facts."  What  becomes  of  the  genius 
of  the  experimental  novelist  ?     The    genius,  the  idea 


3^  THE   EXPERIMENl'AL  NOVEL. 

a  priori^  remains,  only  it  is  controlled  by  experi- 
ment. The  experiment  naturally  cannot  destroy  his 
genius  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  confirms  it.  To  take  the 
case  of  a  poet,  for  example :  To  show  he  has  genius  is 
^^j  '  it  necessary  that  his  feeling,  his  idea,  a  priori,  should 
be  false  ?  Evidently  not,  for  the  genius  of  a  man  will 
be  so  much  the  greater  when  experiment  has  proved 
the  truth  of  his  personal  idea.  Our  age  of  lyricism, 
our  romantic  disease,  was  alone  capable  of  measuring 
a  man's  genius  by  the  quantity  of  nonsense  and  folly 
which  he  put  in  circulation.  I  conclude  by  saying 
that  in  our  scientific  century  experiment  must  prove 
genius. 

This  is  the  drift  of  our  quarrel  with  the  idealistic 
writers.  They  always  start  out  from  an  irrational 
source  of  some  kind,  such  as  a  revelation,  a  tradition, 
or  conventional  authority.  As  Claude  Bernard  de- 
clares :  "  We  must  admit  nothing  occult ;  there  are 
but  phenomena  and  the  conditions  of  phenomena." 
We  naturalistic  novelists  submit  each  fact  to  the  test 
of  observation  and  experiment,  while  the  idealistic 
writers  admit  mysterious  elements  which  escape  anal- 
ysis, and  therefore  remain  in  the  unknown,  outside  of 
the  influence  of  the  laws  governing  nature.  This 
question  of  the  ideal,  from  the  scientific  point  of  view, 
reduces  itself  to  a  question  of  indeterminate  or  deter- 
minate. All  that  we  do  not  know,  all  that  escapes  us 
still,  that  is  truly  the  ideal,  and  the  aim  of  our  human 
efforts  is  each  day  to  reduce  the  ideal,  to  conquer 
truth  from  the  unknown.  We  are  all  idealists,  if  we 
mean  by  this  that  we  busy  ourselves  with  the  ideal. 
But  I  dub  those  idealists  who  take  refuge  in  the 
unknown  for  the  pleasure  of  being  there,  who  have 


,  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  37 

a  taste  but  for  the  most  risky  hypotheses,  who  disdain 
to  submit  them  to  the  test  of  experiment  under  the 
pretext  that  the  truth  is  in  themselves  and  not  in  the 
things.  These  writers,  I  repeatTaccomplish  a  vain  and 
harmful  task,  while  the  observer  and  the  experimen- 
talist are  the  only  ones  who  work  for  the  strength  and 
happiness  of  man,  making  him  more  and  more  the 
master  of  nature.  There  is  neither  nobility,  nor 
dignity,  nor  beauty,  nor  morality  in  not  knowing,  in 
lying,  in  pretending  that  you  are  greater  according  as 
you  advance  in  error  and  confusion.  The  only  great 
and  moral  works  are  those  of  truth. 

What  we  alone  must  accept  is  what  I  will  call  the 
stimulus_of_the  ideal.  Certainly  our  science  is  very 
limited  as  yet,  beside  the  enormous  mass  of  things  of 
which  we  are  ignorant.  This  great  unknown  which 
surrounds  us  ought  to  inspire  us  with  the  desire  to 
pierce  it,  to  explain  it  by  means  of  scientific  methods. 
And  this  does  not  refer  only  to  scientific  men  ;  all  the 
manifestations  of  human  intelligence  are  connected 
together,  all  our  efforts  have  their  birth  in  the  need  we 
feel  of  making  ourselves  masters  of  the  truth.  Claude 
Bernard  explains  this  very  clearly  when  he  writes: 
"  The  sciences  each  possess,  if  not  a  special  method,  at 
least  special  processes,  and,  moreover,  they  reciprocally 
serve  as  tools  for  one  another.  Mathematics  serves  as 
a  tool  to  physics,  to  chemistry,  and  to  biology  in  very 
different  measure ;  physics  and  chemistry  serve  as 
powerful  tools  to  physiology  and  medicine.  In  this 
mutual  help  which  the  sciences  are  to  each  other,  you 
must  distinguish  clearly  the  savant  who  advances  each 
science  and  he  who  makes  use  of  it.  The  physician 
and  the  chemist  are  not  mathematicians  because  they 


V. 


3^  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL 

employ  calculation ;  the  physiologist  is  not  a  chemist 
or  a  physician  because  he  uses  chemical  reactions  or 
medical  instruments,  any  more  than  the  chemist  and 
the  physician  are  physiologists  because  they  study  the 
compositions  or  the  properties  of  certain  liquids  and 
certain  animal  or  vegetable  tissues."  This  is  the  reply 
which  Claude  Bernard  can  be  said  to  make  for  us  natu- 
ralists to  the  critics  who  taunt  us  with  making  preten- 
sions to  science.  We  are  neither  chemists  nor  physi- 
cians nor  physiologists ;  we  are  simply  novelists  who 
depend  upon  the  sciences  for  support.  We  certainly 
do  not  pretend  to  have  made  discoveries  in  physi- 
ology which  we  do  not  practice;  only,  being  obliged 
to  make  a  study  of  man,  we  feel  we  cannot  deny  the 
efficacy  of  the  new  physiological  truths.  And  I  will 
add  that  the  novelists  are  certainly  the  workers  who 
rely  at  once  upon  the  greatest  number  of  sciences, 
for  they  treat  of  them  all  and  must  know  them  all, 
as  the  novel  has  become  a  general  inquiry  on  nature 
and  on  man.  This  is  why  we  have  been  led  to  apply 
to  our  work  the  experimental  method  as  soon  as  this 
method  had  become  the  most  powerful  tool  of  investi- 
gation. We  sum  up  investigation,  we  throw  ourselves 
anew  into  the  conquest  of  the  ideal,  employing  all 
forms  of  knowledge. 

Let  it  be  well  understood  that  I  am  speaking  of  the 
"  how "  of  things  and  not  of  the  "  why."  For  an 
experimental  savant,  the  ideal  which  he  is  endeavoring 
to  reduce,  the  indeterminate,  is  always  restricted  to 
the  "  how."  He  leaves  to  philosophers  the  other  ideal, 
that  of  the  "  why,"  which  he  despairs  of  determin- 
ing. I  think  that  the  experimental  novelists  equally 
ought  not  to  occupy  themselves  with  this  unknown 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  39 

quality,  unless  they  wish  to  lose  themselves  in  the  1 
follies  of  the  poets  and  the  philosophers.  It  is  surely  ^ 
an  object  large  enough  to  try  to  know  the  entire 
mechanism  of  nature,  without  troubling  one's  self  for 
the  time  being  with  the  origin  of  the  mechanism.  If 
we  some  day  succeed  in  knowing  it,  we  shall  doubtless 
owe  our  knowledge  to  method,  and  it  is  better  then  to 
begin  at  the  beginning  with  the  study  of  phenomena, 
instead  of  hoping  that  a  sudden  revelation  will  reveal 
to  us  the  secret  of  the  world.  We  are  the  workmen ; 
we  will  leave  to  the  metaphysicians  this  great  unknown 
of  the  **  why  "  they  have  struggled  with  so  vainly  for 
centuries,  in  order  to  confine  our  efforts  to  that  other 
unknown  of  the  "  how,"  which  is  cleared  away  more 
and  more  every  day  by  our  investigation.  The  only 
ideal  which  ought  to  exist  for  us,  the  naturalistic 
novelists,  should  be  one  which  we  can  conquer. 

Besides,  in  the  slow  conquest  which  we  can  make 
over  this  unknown  which  surrounds  us,  we  humbly 
confess  the  ignorant  condition  in  which  we  are.  We 
are  beginning  to  march  forward,  nothing  more ;  and 
our  only  real  strength  lies  in  our  method.  Claude 
Bernard,  after  acknowledging  that  experimental  med- 
icine is  in  its  infancy  still,  does  not  hesitate  to  give 
great  credit  to  empirical  medicine.  "  In  reality,"  he 
says,  "  empiricism,  that  is  to  say,  observation  or  acci- 
dental experiment,  has  been  the  origin  of.  all  science. 
In  the  complex  sciences  dealing  with  man  empiricism 
necessarily  governs  the  practice  much  longer  than  in. 
those  of  the  more  simple  sciences."  And  he  is  wilHng  / 
to  admit  that  at  the  crisis  of  a  disease,  when  the  deter-  | 
minism  or  nearest  cause  of  the  pathological  phenom- 
ena has  not  been  found,  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  act 


40  THk  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

empirically ;  as,  moreover,  happens  in  the  growth  of 

knowledge," since  empiricism  invariably  precedes   the 

scientific    condition    of    any    branch    of    knowledge. 

^ .'  Certainly   if    doctors    must    resort   to   empiricism   in 

/  nearly  every  case,  we  have  much  greater  reasons  for 

/    using  it,  we  novelists  whose  science  is  more  compli- 

'      cated  and  less  determined.     I  say  once  more,  it  is  not 

a   question   of   creating   the   science    of   man,   as  an 

individual   and   as   a   social   being,  out  of  the  whole 

cloth ;  it  is  only  a  question  of  emerging  little  by  little 

and  with  all  the  inevitable  struggles  from  the  obscurity 

in  which  we  lie  concerning  our  own  natures,  happy  if, 

amid  so  many  errors,  we  can  determine  one  truth.    We 

experiment,  that  is  to  say  that,  for  a  long  time  still,  we 

must  use  the  false  to  reach  the  true. 

Such  is  the  feeling  among  strong  men.  Claude  Ber- 
nard argues  fiercely  against  those  who  persist  in  seeing 
only  an  artist  in  a  doctor.  He  knows  the  habitual 
objection  of  those  who  pretend  to  look  upon  experi- 
mental medicine  "  as  a  theoretical  conception  of  which 
nothing  for  the  moment  justifies  the  practical  reality, 
because  no  fact  demonstrates  the  attainment  in  medi- 
cine of  the  scientific  precision  of  the  experimental 
sciences."  But  he  does  not  let  this  worry  him  ;  he 
shows  that  "  experimental  medicine  is  but  the  natural 
outcome  of  practical  medical  investigation  directed  by 
a  scientific  mind.**  And  here  is  his  conclusion  :  *'  With- 
out doubt  it  will  be  a  long  time  before  medicine 
becomes  truly  scientific  ;  but  that  does  not  prevent  us 
from  conceiving  the  possibility  of  such  a  thing,  and 
doing  all  that  we  can  to  help  it  by  trying  daily  to 
introduce  into  medicine  the  method  which  is  to  lead  us 
to  it." 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  41 

All  this,  which  I  will  not  tire  you  by  repeating, 
applies  perfectly  to  the  experimental  novel.  Put  the 
word  "  novel  "  in  plarp  nf  ''  rn^(^icine/'  and  the  passage 
remains  equally  true. 

I  will  address  to  the  young  literary  generation  which 
is  growing  up  around  me  these  grand  and  strong  words 
of  Claude  Bernard.  I  know  none  more  manly.  "  Medi- 
cine is  destined  to  escape  little  by  little  from  empiri- 
cism, and  she  will  escape,  as  have  all  the  other  sciences, 
by  the  experimental  method.  This  profound  convic- 
tion sustains  and  controls  my  scientific  life.  I  am  deaf 
to  the  voices  of  those  doctors  who  demand  that  the 
causes  of  scarlatina  and  measles  shall  be  experimentally 
shown  to  them,  and  who  think  by  that  to  draw  forth 
an  argument  against  the  use  of  the  experimental 
method  in  medicine.  These  discouraging  objections 
and  denials  generally  come  from  systematic  or  lazy 
minds,  those  who  prefer  to  rest  on  their  systems  or  to 
sleep  in  darkness  instead  of  making  an  effort  to  become 
enlightened.  The  experimental  direction  which  medi- 
cine is  taking  to-day  is  definitely  defined.  And  it  is 
no  longer  the  ephemeral  influence  of  a  personal  system 
of  any  kind  ;  it  is  the  result  of  the  scientific  evolution 
of  medicine  itself.  My  convictions  in  this  respect  are 
so  strong  that  I  endeavor  to  impress  them  clearly  upon 
the  minds  of  the  young  medical  students  who  are  fol- 
lowing my  course  at  the  College  de  France.  The  stu- 
dents must  be  inspired  before  all  else  with  the  scientific 
spirit,  and  initiated  into  the  ideas  and  the  tendencies  of 
modern  science." 

Though  I  have  frequently  written  the  same  words 
and  given  the  same  advice,  I  will  repeat  them  here  : 
"  The  experimental  method  alone  can  bring  the  novel 


42  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

out  of  the  atmosphere  of  lies  and  errors  in  which  it  is 


plunged.  XTTmy  literary  life  has  been  controlled  by 
this'conviction.  I  am  deaf  to  the  voices  of  the  critics 
who  demand  that  I  shall  formulate  the  laws  of  heredity 
and  the  influence  of  surroundings  in  my  characters ; 
those  who  make  these  discouraging  objections  and 
denials  but  speak  from  slothfulness  of  mind,  from  an 
infatuation  for  tradition,  from  an  attachment  more  or 
less  conscious  to  philosophical  and  religious  beliefs. 
The  experimental  direction  which  the  novel  is  taking 
to-day  is  a  definite  one.  And  it  is  no  longer  the 
ephemeral  influence  of  a  personal  system  of  any  kind, 
it  is  the  result  of  the  scientific  evolution,  of  the  study 
of  man  himself.  My  convictions  in  this  respect  are  so 
strong  that  I  endeavor  to  impress  them  clearly  upon 
the  minds  of  the  young  writers  who  read  my  works ; 
for  I  think  it  necessary,  above  all  things  else,  to  inspire 
them  with  the  scientific  spirit,  and  to  initiate  them  into 
the  ideas  and  the  tendencies  of  modern  science." 


V. 

BEFORE  concluding  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  touch 
upon  several  secondary  points. 

If  it  is  necessary  to  state  the  facts  precisely  on  any 
one  subject,  it  is  on  that  of  the  impersonal  character  of 
the  method.  Some  have  accused  Claude  Bernard  of 
wishing  to  pose  as  an  innovator ;  and  he  has  replied  to 
these  attacks  as  follows :  "  I  have  certainly  not  pre- 
tended to  be  the  first  to  propose  the  application  of 
physiology  to  medicine.  That  was  recommended  a 
long  time  ago,  and  numerous  attempts  have  been  made 
in  this  direction.  In  my  works,  and  in  my  lectures  at 
the  College  de  France,  I  have  only  followed  out  an 
idea  which  has  already  borne  fruit  in  its  application  to 
medicine."  This  is  what  I  myself  have  replied  when 
they  have  accused  me  of  wishing  to  pose  as  an  inno- 
vator and  the  leader  of  a  new  school.  I  have  said  that 
I  introduce  nothing,  that  I  simply  endeavor  to  apply 
in  my  novels  and  critical  essays  the  scientific  method 
which  has  been  in  use  for  a  long  time.  But  naturally 
they  have  pretended  not  to  hear  me,  and  they  still  con- 
tinue to  talk  of  my  vanity  and  my  ignorance. 

I  have  already  repeated  twenty  times  that  natur- 
alism is  not  a  personal  fantasy,  but  that  it  is  the 
jntellectual  movement  of  the  century.  Perhaps  they 
will  believe  Claude  Bernard,  who  speaks  with  greater 
authority  on  this  subject  than  I  can  lay  claim  to  ;  he 
declares   that :    ''  The    revolution    which   the    experi- 


44  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

mental  method  has  caused  in  science  consists  mainly 
in  the  substitution  of  a  scientific  criterion  for  a 
personal  authority.  It  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
experimental  method  to  depend  only  on  itself,  as  it 
carries  within  itself  its  criterion,  which  is  experiment. 
It  recognizes  no  authority  but  that  of  facts,  and  it 
frees  itself  from  personal  authority."  Consequently,  it 
no  longer  admits  the  authority  of  any  theory  either. 
"  The  idea  should  always  remain  independent ;  it  must 
be  enchained  neither  by  scientific,  nor  philosophical, 
nor  religious  beliefs.  Man  must  be  strong  and  free  in 
the  manifestation  of  his  ideas,  must  follow  his  instinct, 
and  not  dwell  upon  the  puerile  fears  of  the  contradic- 
tion of  any  theories  ;  ...  he  must  modify  theory  by 
adapting  it  to  nature^_and_not  nature  bv  adapting  it  to 
theory."  From  this  there  results  an  incomparable 
breadth.  **  The  experimental  method  is  the  scientific 
method  which  proclaims  the  liberty  of  thought.  It  not 
only  throws  off  the  philosophical  and  theological  yoke, 
but  it  no  longer  admits  scientific  personal  authority. 
This  is  not  said  from  pride  or  boastfulness.  The  ex- 
perimentalist, on  the .  contrary,  shows  his  humility  in 
denying  personal  authority,  for  he  doubts  his  own 
knowledge,  and  he  submits  the  authority  of  men  to 
that  of  experiment  and  the  laws  which  govern  nature." 
This  is  why  I  have  said  so  many  times  that  natural- 
ism is  not  a  school,  as  it  is  not  embodied  in  the  genius 
of  one  man,  nor  in  the  ravings  of  a  group  of  men,  as  was 
romanticism  ;  that  it  consists  simply  in  the  application 
\^  of  the  experimental  method  to  the  study  of  nature 
and  of  man.  Hence  it  is  nothing  but  a  vast  move- 
ment, a  march  forward  in  which  everyone  is  a  workman, 
according   to   his   genius.     All    theories  are  admitted. 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL.  45 

and  the  theory-  which  carries  the  most  weight  is  the 
one  which  explains  the  most.  There  does  not  appear 
to  me  to  be  a  literary  or  scientific  path  larger  or  more 
direct.  Everyone,  the  great  and  the  small,  moves 
freely,  working  and  investigating  together,  each  one  in 
his  own  specialty,  and  recognizing  no  other  authority 
than  that  of  facts  proved  by  experiment.  Therefore 
in  naturaHsm  there  could  be  neither  innovators  nor 
leaders;  there  are  simply  workmen,  some  more  skill- 
ful than  others. 

Claude  Bernard  explains  the  defiance  which  we 
should  assume  toward  theories  thus  :  "  You  must  have 
a  strong  faith  and  yet  not  believe ;  I  will  explain  my- 
self by  saying  that  it  is  necessary  in  science  to  believe 
firmly  in  the  principles  and  to  doubt  the  formulas  ;  in 
fact,  on  one  side  we  are  sure  that  determinism  exists, 
but  we  are  never  certain  of  possessing  it.  We  must  be 
immovable  on  the  principles  of  experimental  science 
(determinism),  and  yet  not  believe  in  the  theories 
absolutely."  I  will  quote  the  following  passage,  in 
which  he  announces  the  end  of  systems :  *'  Experi- 
mental medicine  is  not  a  new  system  of  medicine,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  the  negation  of  all  systems.  In  fact, 
the  coming  of  experimental  medicine  will  result  in  dis- 
persing from  science  all  individual  views,  to  replace 
them  by  impersonal  and  general  theories,  which  will  be, 
as  in  other  sciences,  but  a  regular  co-ordination  deduced 
from  the  facts  furnished  by  experiment." 

If  Claude  Bernard  repels  the  charge  of  being  an  in- 
novator, or  rather,  an  inventor,  who  brings  a  personal 
theory  with  him,  he  refers  also  several  times  to  the 
danger  there  would  be  in  a  savant's  meddling  with 
philosophical   systems.     *'  The   experimental   doctor," 


46  THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL. 

he  says,  "  should  neither  be  a  spiritualist  nor  a  materi- 
alist. These  names  belong  to  an  old  school  of  natural 
philosophy  which  has  fallen  into  disuse  in  the  progress 
of  science.  We  shall  never  fully  understand  either 
mind  or  matter ;  and,  if  this  were  the  proper  place,  I 
could  easily  show  that  on  one  side  as  on  the  other  you 
soon  reach  scientific  negation,  from  which  it  follows  that 
all  considerations  of  this  kind  are  idle  and  useless.  It  is 
for  us  to  study  only  phenomena,  to  know  the  material 
conditions  of  their  manifestations,  and  to  determine 
the  laws  of  these  manifestations."  I  have  said  that  in 
the  experimental  novel  it  is  best  for  us  to  hold  to  the 
strictly  scientific  point  of  view  if  we  wish  to  base  our 
studies  on  solid  ground  ;  not  to  go  out  from  the 
**  how,"  not  to  attach  ourselves  to  the  '*  why."  How- 
ever, it  is  very  certain  that  we  cannot  always  escap( 
this  need  of  our  intelligence,  this  restless  curiosity 
which  makes  us  desire  to  know  the  essence  of  thingj 
I  think  that  it  is  best  for  us  to  accept  the  philosophical 
system,  which  adapts  itself  the  best  to  the  actual  con- 
dition of  the  sciences,  but  simply  from  a  speculative 
point  of  view.  For  example,  transformism  is  actually 
the  most  rational  system,  and  is  the  one  which  is 
based  most  directly  upon  our  knowledge  of  nature. 
Behind  a  science,  behind  a  manifestation  of  any  kind 
of  the  human  intelligence,  there  always  lies  more  or  less 
clearly  what  Claude  Bernard  calls  a  philosophical 
system.  To  this  system  it  is  not  well  to  attach  one's 
self  devotedly,  but  to  hold  tenaciously  to  the  facts, 
free  to  modify  the  system  if  the  facts  call  for  it.  But 
the  system  exists  none  the  less,  and  it  exists  so  much 
the  more  as  science  is  less  advanced  and  less  firm. 
For  us  naturalistic  novelists,  who  are  still  in  the  lisping 


f 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL.  47 

Stage,  hypothesis  is  fatal.     By  and  by  I  will  take  up 
the  role  of  hypothesis  in  literature. 

Nevertheless,  if  in  practice  Claude  Bernard  thrusts 
aside  philosophical  system,  he  recognizes  the  neces- 
sity of  philosophy.  "  From  a  scientific  point  of  view, 
philosophy  represents  the  eternal  desire  of  the  human 
reason  after  knowledge  of  the  unknown.  Hence 
philosophers  always  confine  themselves  to  questions 
that  are  in  dispute,  and  to  those  lofty  regions  that 
lie  beyond  the  boundaries  of  science.  In  this  way 
they  communicate  to  science  a  certain  inspiration 
which  animates  and  ennobles  it.  They  strengthen  the 
mind — developing  it  by  an  intellectual  gymnastics — 
at  the  same  time  that  they  ever  carry  it  toward  the 
never-completed  solution  of  great  problems.  Thus 
they  keep  up  a  cult  of  the  unknown,  and  quicken 
t;he  sacred  fire  of  investigation,  which  ought  never  to 
be  extinguished  in  the  heart  of  a  savant."  This 
passage  is  very  fine,  but  the  philosophers  have  never 
been  told  in  better  terms  that  their  hypotheses  are 
pure  poetry.  Claude  Bernard  evidently  looks  upon 
the  philosophers,  among  whom  he  believes  he  has  a 
great  many  friends,  as  musicians  often  gifted  with 
genius,  whose  music  encourages  the  savants  while  they 
work  and  inspires  the  sacred  fire  of  their  great  dis- 
coveries. But  the  philosophers,  left  to  themselves, 
will  sing  forever  and  never  discover  a  single  truth. 

I  have  neglected  until  now  the  question  of  form  in 
the  naturalistic  novel,  because  it  is  precisely  there  that 
individuality  shows  in  literature.  Not  only  is  a  writer's 
genius   to   be  found   in  the   feeling  and   in   the   idea 

a  priori  but  also  in  the  form  and  style.     But  the  ques- 

tion  of  method  and  the  quesfiQn"nf  rli ptnnV  are  Higtmrt 


48  THE   EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL. 

from  each^Qjher.  And  by  naturalism,  I  say  again, 
is  meant  the  experimental  method,  the  introduction 
of  observation  and  experiment  into  literature.  Rheto- 
ric, for  the  moment,  has  no  place  here.  Let  us  first 
fix  upon  the  method,  on  which  there  should  be  agree- 
ment, and  after  that  accept  all  the  different  styles  in 
letters  which  may  be  produced,  looking  upon  them  as 
the  expressions  of  the  literary  temperament  of  the 
writers. 

If  you  wish  my  true  opinion  upon  this  subject,  it  is 
this :  that  to-day  an  exaggerated  importance  is  given 
to  form.  I  have  a  great  deal  to  say  on  this  subject, 
but  it  would  carry  me  beyond  the  limits  of  this  essay. 
In  reality,  I  think  that  the  form  of  expression  depends 
upon  the  method ;  that  language  is  only  one  kind  of 
logic,  and  its  construction  natural  and  scientific.  He 
who  writes  the  best  will  not  be  the  one  who  gallops 
madly  among  hypotheses,  but  the  one  who  walks 
straight  ahead  in  the  midst  of  truths.  We  are  actually 
rotten  with  lyricism  ;  we  are  very  much  mistaken  when 
we  think  that  the  characteristic  of  a  good  style  is 
a  sublime  confusion  with  just  a  dash  of  madness 
added ;  in  reality,  the  excellence  of  a  style  depends 
upon  its  logic  and  clearness. 

Claude  Bernard  considers  that  philosophers  are 
really  musicians  who  play  a  sort  of  Marseillaise  made 
up  of  hypotheses,  and  swell  the  hearts  of  the  savants 
as  they  rush  to  attack  the  unknown  ;  and  he  has  much 
the  same  idea  of  artists  and  writers.  I  have  remarked 
that  a  great  many  of  the  most  intelligent  savants,  jealous 
of  the  scientific  certainty  which  they  enjoy,  would  very 
willingly  confine  literature  to  the  ideal.  They  them- 
selves seem  to  feel  the  need  of  taking  little  recreations 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL.  49 

in  the  world  of  lies  after  the  fatigue  of  their  exact 
labors,  and  they  are  fond  of  amusing  themselves  with 
the  most  daring  hypotheses,  and  with  fictions  which 
they  know  perfectly  well  to  be  false  and  ridiculous. 
Claude  Bernard  was  right  when  he  said :  "  Literary 
and  artistic  productions  will  never  grow  old  in  the 
sense  that  they  are  the  expressions  of  sentiments 
as  unchangeable  as  human  nature."  In  fact,  form 
is  sufficient  to  immortalize  a  work ;  the  spectacle 
of  a  powerful  individuality  reproducing  nature  in 
superb  language  will  interest  all  ages  ;  only  the  works 
of  a  savant,  from  this  same  point  of  view,  will  be  read 
always,  for  the  reason  that  the  thought  of  a  great 
savant  who  knows  how  to  write  is  much  more  interest- 
ing than  that  of  a  poet.  However  far  astray  the  savant 
may  be  in  his  hypothesis,  he  still  remains  the  equal  of 
the  poet,  who  is  certain  to  have  been  equally  mistaken. 
The  point  to  be  emphasized  is  this,  that  our  domain  is 
not  limited  to  the  expression  of  sentiments  jas  un- 
changeable as  human  nature  because  it  is  essential  also 
to  exhibit  the  working  of  these  sentiments. 

We  have  not  exhausted  our  matter  when  we  have 
depicted  anger,  avarice,  and  love  ;  all  nature  and  all  of 
man  belong  to  us,  not  only  in  their  phenomena,  but 
in  the  causes  of  these  phenomena.  I  well  know  that 
this  is  an  immense  field,  the  entrance  to  which  they 
would  willingly  have  refused  us ;  but  we  have  broken 
down  the  barriers  and  have  entered  it  in  triumph. 
This  is  why  I  do  not  accept  the  following  words  of 
Claude  Bernard :  "  In  art  and  letters  personality  domi- 
nates everything.  There  one  is  dealing  with  a  spontane- 
ous creation  of  the  mind  that  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  verification  of  natural  phenomena,  in  which 


50  THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL. 

our  minds  can  create  nothing."  I  have  here  detected 
one  of  our  most  illustrious  savants  sharing  in  the 
attempt  to  refuse  to  letters  the  entree  to  the  scientific 
field.  I  do  not  know  what  letters  he  refers  to  in  this 
definition  of  a  literary  work:  "A  spontaneous  creation 
of  the  mind  that  has  nothing  in  common  with  the 
verification  of  natural  phenomena."  Doubtless  he  has 
lyrical  poetry  in  his  mind,  for  he  never  could  have 
written  that  phrase  had  he  understood  the^experi- 
mental  novel  as  shown  in  the  works  of  Balzac  and 
Stendhal;^  iTz^xv  only  repeat  whatT  have  said  before, 
that  apart  from  the  matter  of  form  and  style,  the 
experimental  novelist  is  only  one  special  kind  of 
savant,  who  makes  use  of  the  tools  of  all  other  savants, 
observation  and  analysis.  Our  fijddjs  the  same_ag_ih£- 
physiologist's,  only  that  it  is  greater.  We^gerat^Jike 
him,  -en-  -ma«-i— aftd^-€tettfe~'Bernard  recognizes  this 
fact  himself,  that  the  cerebral  phenomena  can  be  deter- 
mined the  same  as  other  phenomena.  It  is  true  that 
Claude  Bernard  can  tell  us  that  we  are  lost  in  hypothe- 
ses ;  but  to  conclude  from  this  that  we  shall  never 
arrive  at  the  truth  sits  very  badly  on  him,  as  he  has 
struggled  all  his  life  to  make  a  science  of  medicine, 
which  the  great  majority  of  his  contemporaries  look 
upon  as  an  art. 

Let  us  clearly  define  now  what  is  meant  by  an 
^  expj£rimental  novelist.  Claude  Bernard  gives  the  fol- 
"lowiri^g  definition  of  an  artist :  "  What  is  an  artist  ?  He 
is  a  man  who  realizes  in  a  work  of  art  an  idea  or  a  sen- 
timent which  is  personal  to  him."  I  absolutely  reject 
this  definition.  On  this  basis  if  I  represented  a  man 
as  walking  on  his  head,  I  should  have  made  a  work  of 
art,  if  such  happened  to  be  my  personal  sentiments. 


V 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL.  5 1 

But  in  that  case  I  should  be  a  fool  and  nothing  else. 
So  one  must  add  that  the  personal  feeling  of  the  artist 
is  always  subject  to  the  higher  law  of  truth  and  nature. 
We  now  come  to  the  question  of  hypothesis.  The 
artist  starts  out  from  the  same  point  as  the  savant ;  he 
places  himself,  before  nature,  has  an  idea  a  priori^  and 
works  according  to  this  idea.  Here  alone  he  separates 
himself  from  the  savant,  if  he  carries  out  his  idea  to 
the  end  without  verifying  its  truth  by  the  means  of 
observation  and  experiment.  Those  who  make  use  of 
.  experiment  might  well  be  called  experimental  artists ; 
but  then  people  will  tell  us  that  they  are  no  longer 
artists,  since  such  people  regard  art  as  the  burden  of 
personal  error  which  the  artist  has  put  into  his  study 
of  nature.  I  contend  that  the  personality  of  the  writer 
should  only  appear  in  the  idea  a  priori  and  in  the 
form,  not  in  the  infatuation  for  the  false.  I  see  no 
oEjection,  besides,  to  its  showing  in  the  hypothesis, 
but  it  is  necessary  to  clearly  understand  what  you 
mean  by  these  words.' 

It  has  often  been  said  that  writers  ought  to  open  the 
way  for  savants.  This  is  true,  for  we  have  seen  in 
"  LTntroduction "  that  hypothesis  and  empiricism 
precede  and  prepare  for  the  scientific  state  which  is 
established  finally  by  the  experimental  method.  Man 
commenced  by  venturing  certain  explanations  of  phe- 
nomena, the  poets  gave  expression  to  their  emotions, 
and  the  savants  ended  by  mastering  hypotheses  and  fix- 
ing the  truth.  Claude  Bernard  always  assigns  the  role 
of  pioneers  to  the  philosophers.  It  is  a  very  noble 
role,  and  to-day  it  is  the  writers  who  should  assume  it 
and  who  should  endeavor  to  fill  it  worthily.  Only  let 
it  be  well  understood  that  each  time  that  a  truth  is 


52  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

established  by  the  savants  the  writers  should  immedi- 
ately abandon  their  hypothesis  to  adopt  this  truth ; 
otherwise  they  will  remain  deliberately  in  error  without 
benefiting  anyone.  It  is  thus  that  science,  as  it  ad- 
vances, furnishes  to  us  writers  a  solid  ground  upon 
which  we  should  lean  for  support,  to  better  enable  us  to 
shoot  into  new  hypotheses.  In  a  word,  every  phenome- 
non, once  clearly  determined,  destroys  the  hypothesis 
which  it  replaces,  and  it  is  then  necessary  to  trans- 
port your  hypothesis  one  step  further  into  the 
new  unknown  which  arises.  I  will  take  a  very  sim- 
ple example  in  order  to  make  myself  better  under- 
stood :  it  has  been  proved  that  the  earth  revolves 
around  the  sun  ;  what  would  you  think  of  a  poet  who 
should  adopt  the  old  belief  that  the  sun  revolves 
around  the  earth?  Evidently  the  poet,  if  he  wishes 
to  risk  a  personal  explanation  of  any  fact,  should 
choose  a  fact  whose  cause  is  not  already  known.  This, 
then,  illustrates  the  position  hypothesis  should  oc- 
cupy for  experimental  novelists ;  we  must  accept  deter- 
mined facts,  and  not  attempt  to  risk  about  them  our 
personal  sentiments,  which  would  be  ridiculous,  build- 
ing throughout  on  the  territory  that  science  has  con- 
quered ;  then  before  the  unknown,  but  only  then, 
exercising  our  intuition  and  suggesting  the  way  to 
science,  free  to  make  mistakes,  happy  if  we  produce 
any  data  toward  the  solution  of  the  problem.  Here 
I  stand  at  Claude  Bernard's  practical  programme,  who 
is  forced  to  accept  empiricism  as  a  necessary  fore- 
runner. In  our  experimental  novel  we  can  easily  risk 
a  few  hypotheses  on  the  questions  of  heredity  and 
surroundings,  after  having  respected  all  that  science 
knows  to-day  about  the  matter.     We  can  prepare  the 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL   NOVEL.  53 

ways,  we  can  furnish  the  results  of  observation,  human! 
data   which  may  prove  very  useful.     A  great  lyrical] 
poet  has  written  lately  that  our  century  is  a  century  of 
/  prophets.     Yes,  if   you   wish    it ;    only  let  it  be  well 
[      understood  that  these  prophets  rely  neither  upon  the 
\    irrational    nor    the    supernatural.      If     the    prophets 
thought  best  to  bring  up  again  the  most  elementary 
notions,  to  serve  up  nature  with   a  strange  religious 
and  philosophical  sauce,  to   hold    fast    to   the   meta- 
physical  man,  to   confound  and  obscure   everything, 
the    prophets,   notwithstanding    their   genius    in   the 
matter  of  style,  would  never  be  anything  but  great 
gooses  ignorant  whether  they  would  get  wet  if  they 
jumped   into  the   water.      In   our  scientific  age  it  is 
/a  very  delicate  thing  to  be  a  prophet,  as  we  no  longer 
/   believe  in  the  truths  of  revelation,  and  in  order  to  be 
/      able  to  foresee  the  unknown  we  must  begin  by  study- 
\    ing  the  known. 

The  conclusion  to  \Yhich  I  wish  to  come  is  this: 
If  I  were  to  define  the  experimental  novel  I  should 
not  say,  as  Claude  Bernard  says,  that  a  literary  work 
lies  entirely  in  the  personal  feeling,  for  the  reason 
that  in  my  opinion  the  personal  feeling  is  but  the  first 
impulse.  Later  nature,  being  there,  makes  itself  felt, 
or  at  least  that  part  of  nature  of  which  science  has 
'  >  given  us  the  secret,  and  about  which  we  have  no  longer 
any  right  to  romance.  The  experimental  novelist  is 
therefore  the  one  who  accepts  proven  facts,  who  points 
out  in  man  and  in  society  the  mechanism  of  the  phe- 
nomena over  which  science  is  mistress,  and  who  does 
not  interpose  his  personal  sentiments,  except  in  the 
phenomena  whose  determinism  is  not  yet  settled,  and 
who  tries  to  test,  as  much  as  he  can,  this  personal  sen- 


54  THE   EXPERIMENTAL  NOVEL. 

timent,  this  idea  a  priori,  by  observation  and  experi- 
ment. 

I  cannot  understand  how  our  naturalistic  literature 
can  mean  anything  else.  I  have  only  spoken  of  the 
experimental  novel,  but  I  am  fairly  convinced  that  the 
same  method,  after  having  triumphed  in  history  and  in 
criticism,  will  triumph  everywhere,  on  the  stage  and  in 
poetry  even.  It  is  an  inevitable  evolution.  Literature, 
in  spite  of  all  that  can  be  said,  dpes  not  depend  merely 
upon  the  author ;  it  is  influenced  by  the  nature  it  depicts 
and^y^the^marr  whom  it  studies.  Now  if  the  savants 
change  their  ideas  of  nature,  if  they  find  the  true 
mechanism  of  life,  they  force  us  to  follow  them,  to  pre- 
cede them  even,  so  as  to  play  our  role  in  the  new 
hypotheses.  The  metaphysical  man  is  dead ;  our 
whole  territory  is  transformed  By  the  Advent  -of'fliF 
physiological  man.  No  doubt  **  Achilles*  Anger,^ 
"Dido's  Love,"  will  last  forever  on  account  of  their 
beauty;  but  to-day  we  feel  the  necessity  of  analyzing 
anger  and  love,  of  discovering  exactly  how  such  pas- 
sions work  in  the  human  being.  This  view  of  the  mat- 
ter is  a  new  one;  we  have  become  experimentaHsts 
instead  of  philosophers.  In  short,  everything  is 
summed  up  in  this  great  fact :  the  experimental 
method  in  letters,  as  in  the  sciences,  is  in  the  way  to 
explain  the  natural  phenomena,  both  individual  and 
social,  of  which  metaphysics,  until  now,  has  given  only 
irrational  and  supernatural  explanations. 


^n<^ 


A   LETTER  TO  THE  YOUNG 
PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 


A  LETTER  TO  THE  YOUNG 
PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 


{DEDICATE  this  article  to  the  young  people  of 
France,  this  youth  who  to-day  have  seen  only 
twenty  years,  but  who  will  be  the  society  of  to-morrow. 
Two  events  of  great  importance  have  just  occurred  : 
the  representation  of  "  Ruy  Bias "  at  the  Com^die 
Frangaise,  and  the  public  reception  of  M.  Renan  at  the 
Academy.  Great  noise  and  wild  enthusiasm  have 
burst  forth,  the  public  press  has  rolled  out  high-sound- 
ing phrases  in  honor  of  the  nation's  genius,  and  it  has 
been  said  that  like  events  should  console  us  in  our 
disasters  and  assure  us  of  future  triumphs.  There  has 
been  a  flight  into  the  ideal,  an  escape  from  the  earth 
and  a  soaring  in  mid-air,  a  sort  of  counter  charge  on 
the  part  of  poetry  against  the  scientific  spirit. 

I  find  the  question  distinctly  defined  in  the  R^pub- 
lique  Franqaise :  *'  Paris  has  just  witnessed  and  given  to 
the  world  the  spectacle  of  two  great  intellectual  feasts, 
which  will  remain  an  honor  and  a  crown  to  this  enlight- 
ened and  liberal  France,  of  which  our  great  and  glorious 
city  is  the  chief  representative.  The  reception  of.  M. 
Ernest  Renan  at  the  Academy,  the  revival  of  *  Ruy 
Bias '  at  the  Com^die  Fran9aise,  may,  in  truth,  be  re- 
garded as  two  events  of  which  we  have  a  right  to  be 

57 


58  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

proud.  There  are  among  us  some  young  people  who  are 
searching  for  their  path  in  life  ;  they  go  straight  ahead, 
pushing  forward,  hungry  for  novelties,  and  they  boast, 
with  the  naivete  of  inexperience,  to  be  further  advanced 
than  their  predecessors  in  the  limitless  domain  of  the 
art  which  is  striving  to  do  battle  with  nature.  Yes, 
that  is  true;  some  among  them  who  have  mistaken 
their  strength  have  declared  war  against  the  ideal,  but 
they  will  be  conquered  ;  their  defeat  can  be  safely  pre- 
dicted after  what  took  place  night  before  last  at  the 
Comedie  Frangaise."  To  understand  my  meaning  the 
flowery  phrases  of  the  journalist  must  be  explained.  It 
means  that  these  young  people  are  the  writers  of  the 
naturalistic  school — those  whose  spirit  is  in  sympathy 
with  the  scientific  movement  of  the  century,  and  whose 
useful  tools  are  observation  and  analysis.  The  jour- 
nalist states  that  these  writers  have  declared  war  against 
the  ideal,  and  he  predicts  that  they  will  be  vanquished 
by  lyricism  and  romantic  rhetoric.  Nothing  could  be 
truer ;  the  other  evening,  when  Victor  Hugo's  beautiful 
verses  were  applauded,  it  gave  the  scientific  movement 
of  the  centujy  a  set-back,  it  was  the  suppression  of 
observation  and  analysis. 

I  will  quote  some  other  testimony,  in  order  to 
explain  more  clearly  the  question  which  I  wish  to 
examine.  M.  Renan,  at  the  commencement  of  his 
speech  at  the  reception,  wishing  to  flatter  the  Academy, 
and  forgetting  his  old-time  admiration  for  Germany, 
spoke  as  follows :  "  You  are  mistrustful  of  a  culture 
which  makes  men  neither  more  amiable  nor  better.  I 
very  much  fear  that  these  people,  given  to  great  serious- 
ness, no  doubt,  while  reproaching  us  for  our  levity, 
may  experience  some  disappointment  with  regard   to 


TO  THE  YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  59 

the  hopes  which  they  entertain  of  gaining  the  world's 
favor  by  other  means  than  those  which  have  so  far 
been  successful.  A  science  pedantic  in  its  solitude,  a 
literature  without  humor,  an  ill-tempered  government, 
a  fashionable  society  without  any  sparkle,  a  spiritless 
nobility,  gentlemen  lacking  in  politeness,  great  generals 
with  barbarous  speech,  will  not  easily  or  soon  over- 
throw the  remembrance  of  our  old  French  society,  so 
brilliant,  so  polished,  so  eager  to  please."  To  this  the 
Berlin  Gazette  Nationale  replied :  '^  The  nations  of 
Europe  are  in  a  struggle  which  admits  of  no  truce ;  the 
one  which  does  not  push  ahead  will  be  overthrown. 
Any  nation  which  thinks  to  rest  content  with  laurels 
already  won  is  instantly  condemned  to  decadence  and 
death.  This  is  the  true  state  of  affairs,  which  so  great 
a  nation  as  the  French  should  learn  to  know.  But  to 
attain  this  end  men  of  serious  natures  and  not  flatter- 
ers are  needed.  We  shall  look  upon  as  our  true  friend 
the  one  who  teaches  us  to  guard  ourselves  from  that 
which  we  most  fear  in  the  world :  empty  vagueness, 
and  the  insufficient  appreciation  of  our  competitors  in 
the  material  and  intellectual  domain.  We  know  the 
inevitable  consequence  by  experience." 

Now  I  say  that  it  is,  the  duty  of  every  patriotic 
Frenchman  to  reflect  on  these  two  documents.  I  do 
not  speak  of  the  patriotism  which  wraps  itself  in  a  flag, 
which  gives  itself  vent  in  odes  and  cantatas ;  but  of  the 
patriotism  of  men  of  science  and  thought,  who  desire 
the  nation's  greatness  by  practical  means.  Yes,  M. 
Renan  is  right :  we  have  had  and  we  still  have  a  great 
deal  of  glory;  but  ponder  on  these  terrible  words: 
"The  one  who  does  not  push  ahead  will  be  over- 
thrown."    Do  you  not  hear  in  them  that  knell  of  the 


6o  TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

past  ages  which  the  new  movement  is  sounding?  To- 
morrow— that  means  this  twentieth  century,  whose  slow 
birth  is  brought  about  by  this  scientific  evolution ; 
to-morrow — that  means  universal  inquiry,  the  spirit  of 
truth  transforming  society ;  and  if  we  wish  to-morrow 
to  belong  to  us  we  must  be  new  men,  marching  toward 
the  future  by  method,  by  logic,  by  study,  and  a  full 
appreciation  of  reality.  To  applaud  a  burst  of  rhetoric, 
to  become  enthusiastic  for  the  ideal,  are  but  the  nervous 
emotions  of  women,  who  weep  as  they  listen  to  beauti 
ful  music.  To-day  we  have  need  of  the  manliness  of 
truth  to  enable  us  to  be  as  great  in  the  future  as  we 
were  in  the  past. 

This  is  what  I  am  going  to  try  to  demonstrate  to 
the  youth  of  France.  I  wish  to  breathe  into  their 
hearts  a  dislike  for  fine  words,  a  distrust  for  these 
flights  into  the  ethereal.  We  others,  who  confine  our- 
selves to  facts,  who  take  up  all  problems,  we  are 
accused,  in  our  study  of  the  facts,  of  filthiness  ;  we  hear 
ourselves  branded  as  corrupters  every  day.  The  time 
has  come  in  which  to  prove  to  the  new  generation  that 
the  real  corrupters  are  these  word-mongers,  and  that 
there  is  a  fatal  fall  in  the  mud  after  each  flight  into  the 
ideal. 


I. 

ALL  nations  honor  their  great  men.  Above  all,  they 
render  homage  to  their  illustrious  writers  who  have 
left  imperishable  monuments  behind  them.  Homer  and 
Vergil  have  survived  the  ruins  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
Thus  it  is  that  Victor  Hugo's  poetical  monument  will 
remain  indestructible,  and  our  century  has  a  right  to 
be  proud  of  this  superb  work  which  is  the  glory  of  the 
French  language,  and  will  live  through  future  ages. 
We  cannot  proclaim  the  poet's  glory  too  loudly.  He 
is  great  among  the  greatest.  He  was  an  admirable 
master  of  words,  and  he  will  live  the  undisputed  king 
of  lyrical  poets.  But  we  must  make  a  distinction. 
Besides  the  form,  the  rhythm  of  the  words,  besides  the 
purely  linguistic  monument,  there  stand  the  principles 
of  the  work.  They  carry  with  them  truth  or  falsehood. 
They  are  the  product  of  a  method  and  become  a  fatal 
force,  which  advances  or  retards  the  century.  If  I 
applaud  Victor  Hugo  as  a  poet,  I  dislike  him  as  a 
thinker  and  a  teacher.  Not  only  does  his  philosophy 
appear  to  me  as  obscure,  contradictory,  and  made  up 
of  emotions  and  not  of  truths,  but,  above  all,  I  find  it 
dangerous,  exercising  a  harmful  influence  on  the  pub- 
lic, leading  young  men  into  the  Hes  of  poesy  and  all 
the  mental  derangements  of  romantic  exaltation. 

And  all  this  we  can  easily  see  in  this  representation 
of  "  Ruy  Bias,"  which  has  caused  such  a  furore.  It  is 
the  poet,  the  superb  master  of  style,  whom  we  applaud. 

6x 


62  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

He  has  uplifted  the  language  ;  he  has  written  verses 
which  have  the  glitter  of  gold  and  the  sonorousness  of 
bronze.  In  no  literature  do  I  know  poetry  that  is 
grander  or  more  skillful,  of  a  purer  lyrical  tone,  of  a 
more  intense  life.  But  no  one  could  truthfully  applaud 
the  philosophy  or  the  truthfulness  of  the  work.  If  you 
set  aside  the  clique  of  fierce  admirers  who  strive  to 
make  Victor  Hugo  a  universal  man,  as  great  a  thinker 
as  he  is  a  poet,  the  world  shrugs  its  shoulders  before 
the  incongruities  of  "  Ruy  Bias."  One  is  obliged  to 
look  upon  this  drama  as  a  fairy  story,  around  which  the 
author  has  woven  a  marvelous  poetry.  When  once 
you  examine  it  from  a  historical  or  a  logical  point  of 
view,  when  once  you  endeavor  to  find  practical  truths, 
facts,  data,  you  are  entangled  in  a  bewildering  chaos  of 
errors  and  misrepresentations ;  you  fall  into  the  noth- 
ingness of  lyrical  madness.  The  most  peculiar  thing  of 
all  is  that  Victor  Hugo  made  pretensions  to  hiding  a 
parable  under  the  poetry  of  "  Ruy  Bias." 

Read  the  preface,  and  see  how  in  Victor  Hugo's  con- 
ception this  lackey  amorous  of  a  queen  represents  the 
people  desiring  liberty,  while  Do7i  Salluste  and  Don 
C^sar  de  Bazan  typify  the  nobility  of  a  dying  mon- 
archy. Everyone  knows  how  complaisant  symbols 
usually  are  ;  you  can  put  them  where  you  will  and 
make  them  signify  what  you  please.  But  this  one 
carries  the  thing  too  far.  Look  at  the  characters  in 
"  Ruy  Bias,"  at  this  imaginary  lackey,  who  had  been  to 
college,  who  had  written  verses  before  he  donned  a 
livery,  who  never  handled  a  tool,  and  who,  instead  of 
learning  a  trade,  warmed  himself  in  the  sun's  rays  and 
fell  madly  in  love  with  duchesses  and  queens.  Ruy 
Bias  is  a  Bohemian,  an  outcast,  a  worthless  fellow.     In 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  ^Z 

no  sense  is  he  one  of  the  people.  But,  admitting  for  an 
instant  that  he  represents  the  people,  let  us  see  how  he 
behaves,  and  let  us  try  to  see  what  he  signifies.  From 
this  point  of  view  everything  becomes  topsy-turvy. 
The  people,  urged  on  by  the  nobility,  love  a  queen ; 
the  people  become  grand  ministers,  and  waste  their 
time  in  fine  speeches;  the  people  kill  the  nobility,  then 
take  poison  immediately  ;  what  is  the  meaning  of  this 
gibberish  ?  What  becomes  of  the  famous  symbol  ?  If 
the  people  kill  themselves  without  cause,  after  having 
suppressed  the  nobility,  society  is  at  an  end.  The 
wretchedness  of  this  extravagant  intrigue  is  felt,  and 
becomes  absolute  folly  as  soon  as  the  poet  attempts 
to  make  it  signify  anything  serious.  I  will  not  point 
out  any  further  the  incongruities  of  "  Ruy  Bias,"  as  far 
as  good  sense  and  simple  logic  are  concerned.  As  a 
lyrical  poem,  I  repeat,  the  work  is  a  marvel ;  but  one 
must  not  for  a  moment  hope  to  find  any  human  nature, 
clearly  defined  ideas,  an  analytical  method  or  a  true 
philosophy.  It  is  a  piece  of  beautiful  music,  nothing 
else. 

Then,  again  :  "  Ruy  Bias,"  they  say,  is  a  flight  into 
the  ideal,  from  whence  radiates  all  manner  of  beautiful 
ideas ;  it  elevates  the  soul,  it  urges  one  forward  to 
great  actions,  it  is  refreshing  and  comforting.  What 
matter  if  it  is  but  a  lie  !  It  takes  us  out  of  our  every- 
day life  and  carries  us  to  the  heights.  We  breathe 
freely,  leaving  the  unclean  works  of  the  naturalistic 
school  behind  us.  Here  we  come  to  the  delicate  point 
of  the  quarrel.  Though  we  have  not  the  time  to 
discuss  the  subject  to  its  bottom,  let  us  see  what 
'*  Ruy  Bias "  contains  of  honor  and  virtue.  First 
we  must  set  aside  Don  Salluste  and  Don  C^sar,     The 


64  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

former  is  Satan,  as  Victor  Hugo  justly  says ;  as  to  the 
latter,  notwithstanding  his  chivalric  respect  for  women, 
he  shows  a  doubtful  morality.  Now  as  to  the  queen. 
This  queen  behaves  badly  in  taking  a  lover ;  I  know 
very  well  that  she  is  weary,  and  that  her  husband 
makes  a  mistake  in  his  too  close  watch  of  her  ;  but 
truly,  if  all  the  women  who  were  weary  took  to  them- 
selves lovers,  it  would  cause  a  revolution  in  every 
family.  Then  as  to  Ruy  Bias,  he  is  a  swindler,  who 
in  real  life  would  find  his  way  to  jail.  What  do  we 
find  ?  This  lackey  accepts  the  queen  from  Don  Sal- 
lustes  hands ;  he  consents  to  enter  into  a  deceit  which 
must  appear  all  the  more  shameful  to  the  spectator, 
because  Don  C^sar,  the  vagabond,  the  friend  of  robbers, 
has  just  branded  its  infamy  in  two  superb  tirades  ;  he 
does  more,  he  steals  a  name  which  is  not  his.  Fur- 
thermore, he  carries  this  name  for  a  year,  he  deceives 
a  queen,  an  entire  court,  and  the  people,  and  he  com- 
mits these  villainies  for  the  sake  of  an  intrigue ;  in  the 
end  he  understands  his  trickery  and  filthiness  so  well 
that  he  poisons  himself.  And  all  this  time  this  man  is 
but  a  scamp  and  a  debaucher.  My  soul  is  not  uplifted 
in  his  company.  I  would  rather  say  my  soul  is  filled 
with  disgust,  because  I  go,  in  spite  of  myself,  behind  the 
poet's  verses,  and  I  try  to  establish  the  facts  and  to 
demonstrate  to  myself  what  does  not  appear  on  the 
surface.  In  reality,  Ruy  Bias  is  but  an  unprincipled 
adventurer,  who  carries  his  kitchen  manners  into  the 
boudoir.  It  is  no  use  for  Victor  Hugo  to  carry  his 
drama  into  the  higher  atmosphere  of  poetry  ;  the  real- 
ity which  underlies  it  is  infamous.  Notwithstanding 
the  beauty  of  the  verses,  the  facts  presented  by  this 
drama  are  not  only  silly,  they  are  unclean  ;  they  do 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  65 

not  urge  one  on  to  good  deeds,  because  the  people 
concerned  in  it  are  but  scamps  and  rogues ;  they  are 
neither  refreshing  nor  elevating,  because  they  start  in 
the  mud  and  the  mire  and  end  in  blood.  These  are  the 
facts.  Now  to  the  verses.  It  is  true  that  they  often 
express  the  most  beautiful  sentiments  in  the  world.  Don 
C^sar  speaks  words  on  the  respect  due  to  women  ;  the 
queen  speaks  words  on  the  sublimity  of  love  ;  Ruy  Bias 
speaks  words  about  ministers  who  steal  the  state. 
Always  words  !  oh,  as  many  words  as  you  please.  Can 
it  be  that  they  expect  to  uplift  people's  souls  merely 
by  a  lot  of  words  ?  Mon  Dieu  !  yes,  and  this  is  the 
point  I  am  anxious  to  reach ;  that  it  is  simply  a 
question  of  rhetorical  virtue  and  honor.  The  roman- 
tic and  lyric  school  depended  entirely  upon  words. 
They  are  inflated  words,  hypertrophies  startling  under 
the  uncouth  exaggeration  of  the  idea.  Is  not  the 
example  striking  ?  In  the  facts  madness  and  coarseness, 
in  the  expressions  a  noble  passion,  a  proud  virtue,  and 
a  superior  honesty.  But  it  is  all  built  on  nothing ;  it 
is  a  construction  of  language  aimlessly  beating  the  air. 
This  is  romanticism. 

I  have  criticised  at  different  intervals  the  romantic 
evolution,  and  it  is  useless  for  me  to  take  up  the  his- 
tory of  this  movement  again.  But  I  must  insist  upon 
the  fact  that  it  was  purely  an  uprising  of  rhetoricians. 
Victor  Hugo's  role,  which  is  a  considerable  one,  has  for 
its  object  a  reburnishing  of  the  poetic  language,  the 
creation  of  a  new  rhetoric.  In  1830  the  battle  was 
really  a  fight  over  the  dictionary.  The  classical  lan- 
guage was  dying  of  inertia ;  the  romanticists  had  in- 
fused new  blood  into  it  by  putting  into  circulation  an 
unknown  and   despised   vocabulary,  by   employing  a 


66  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

host  of  sparkling  images,  by  a  livelier  and  more 
enlarged  manner  of  feeling  and  rendering.  But,  put- 
ting aside  this  question  of  language,  you  can  see  that 
the  romanticists  did  not  separate  themselves  from  the 
classical  school ;  for  like  it  they  remained  deists,  ideal- 
ists, and  symbolists  ;  like  it  they  costumed  beings  and 
acts ;  they  placed  them  in  an  orthodox  heaven  ;  they 
had  the  same  dogmas,  the  same  measures,  the  same 
rules.  But  it  must  be  added  that  lyricism  carried  the 
new  school  much  further  into  the  realm  of  absurdity 
than  did  the  old  classical.  The  poets  of  1830  had 
done  much  to  enlarge  the  literary  field  by  striving  to 
reproduce  man,  in  his  entirety,  with  his  smiles  and  his 
tears,  by  giving  nature  a  part  to  play,  an  idea  originated 
by  Rousseau  long  before.  But  they  spoiled  these  con- 
quered liberties,  they  abused  them  in  a  strange  manner 
by  throwing  themselves  at  once  outside  the  pale  of 
humanity  and  the  natural  order  of  events.  For  exam- 
ple, if  they  dealt  with  nature,  if  they  painted  it,  instead 
of  studying  it  as  a  definite  environment,  completing 
the  characters,  they  animated  it  with  their  own  dreams, 
peopled  it  with  legends  and  nightmares ;  in  the  same 
way  in  their  characters,  they  boasted  that  they  accepted 
the  whole  man,  body  and  soul,  and  their  first  care  was 
to  lift  him  into  the  clouds  and  make  him  a  lie.  Thus, 
inevitably,  it  came  to  pass  that  the  classical  school, 
with  its  rigid  and  dead  world,  was  still  more  humane, 
nearer  to  the  truth,  more  logical  and  complete,  than  the 
romanticists  with  their  vast  horizon  and  the  new 
elements  of  life  which  they  employed.  An  evolution 
accomplished  by  these  lyrical  poets  was  bound  to  pro- 
duce this  result ;  and  this  is  what  we  briefly  explain 
now.     Lyricism  in  a  literary  school  is  a  poetical  exalta- 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  67 

tion  eluding  all  analysis,  and  bordering  on  folly.  Vic- 
tor Hugo  is  but  a  lyrical  poet,  then ;  he  is  essentially 
a  rhetorician  of  genius  in  his  language,  his  philosophy, 
and  his  morality.  But  do  not  look  beneath  his  words 
nor  his  rhymes,  for  I  tell  you  again  you  will  find  an 
inconceivable  chaos  of  errors,  contradictions,  solemn 
child's  play,  and  pompous  abominations. 

To-day  when  we  study  the  literary  movements  since 
the  commencement  of  the  century,  the  romantic  move- 
ment seems  to  be  the  logical  forerunner  of  the  great 
naturalistic  evolution.  It  was  not  without  a  reason 
that  the  lyric  poets  were  produced  first.  Their  coming 
can  be  explained  as  the  outcome  of  the  social  condi- 
tions of  the  time,  and  as  a  result  of  the  shocks  of  the 
Revolution  and  the  Empire ;  after  these  massacres  the 
poets  found  consolation  in  dreams.  But  they  came, 
more  than  for  any  other  reason,  because  in  literature  they 
had  a  great  mission  to  accomplish.  This  was  the  renew- 
ing of  the  language.  It  was  necessary  to  throw  the  old 
dictionary  into  the  ditch,  to  recast  the  language,  to 
invent  new  words  and  figures,  to  create  a  new  style  for 
the  use  of  the  new  society ;  and  the  lyrical  poets  seemed 
the  only  fit  ones  to  lead  in  such  a  work.  They  came 
with  revolutionary  ideas  in  color,  with  a  passion  for 
figures,  with  rhythm  as  their  dominating  concern. 
They  were  painters,  sculptors,  musicians,  who  depended 
upon  sound,  forrp,  and  light  more  than  anything  else. 
For  them  the  idea  was  but  a  secondary  consideration, 
and  we  remember  this  school  of  "  art  for  art's  sake  " 
as  an  absolute  triumph  for  style.  The  essential  char- 
acteristic of  the  lyrical  school  is  a  song  m  which  human 
thought  frees  itself  from  the  shackles  of  method  and 
envelopes  itself  in  sonorous  words.     We  can  acknowl- 


68  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

edge  also  the  glory  which  our  language  acquired  in 
passing  through  this  poetical  flame.  We  find  at  the 
commencement  of  the  century  a  literature  of  learned 
men,  ponderous,  exact,  logical ;  and  their  language, 
weakened  by  three  centuries  of  classical  usage,  was 
like  a  tarnished,  useless  tool.  A  generation  of  lyrical 
poets,  I  repeat,  was  necessary  to  adorn  the  language, 
to  reburnish  the  tool  and  make  it  of  use  again.  This 
"  Canticle  of  Canticles  "  of  the  dictionary,  this  pile  of 
silly  words  flinging  themselves  at  and  dancing  upon 
the  idea,  were  perhaps  necessary.  The  romanticists 
came  in  their  time,  they  forged  the  tool  which  the 
century  needed.  It  is  thus  that  all  great  states  are 
founded  on  a  battle. 

We  shall  see,  a  little  further  on,  what  state  was  to  be 
founded,  thanks  to  the  romantic  battle.  Rhetoric  had 
conquered  ;  the  idea  could  arise  and  formulate  itself, 
thanks  to  the  new  language.  We  must  greet  Victor 
Hugo  as  the  powerful  fabricator  of  this  language.  If 
in  him  the  dramatic  author,  the  novelist,  the  critic,  the 
philosopher  are  subjects  of  debate;  if  lyricism,  the 
sublime  madness,  always  comes  forth  to  upset  in  a 
moment  his  judgments  and  his  conceptions — he  is  above 
all  and  always  the  rhetorician  of  genius  of  whom  I 
have  just  spoken.  This  is  the  reason  for  the  sover- 
eignty which  he  has  exercised  and  which  he  will  exer- 
cise again.  He  has  created  a  style,  he  holds  sway 
over  the  century,  not  by  his  ideas,  but  by  his  words  ; 
the  ideas  of  the  century,  those  that  rule,  are  scientific 
method,  experimental  analysis,  and  naturalism ;  the 
words  are  the  rich  novelties  of  exhumed  or  invented 
terms,  those  magnificent  images,  those  superb  round- 
ings  of  the   phrases  which  usage  has   rendered  com- 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  69 

mon.  At  the  commencement  of  the  movement  the 
words  always  crushed  the  idea,  because  they  struck  one 
more  forcibly.  Victor  Hugo  since  his  early  youth 
has  royally  draped  himself  in  the  mantle  of  form. 
Beside  him  stands  Balzac,  who  carries  the  idea  of  the 
century — analysis  and  observation ;  but  he  seems 
naked,  and  is  hardly  noticed.  Happily,  later,  the 
idea  disengages  itself  from  rhetoric,  asserts  itself, 
reigns  with  a  sovereign  strength.  Here  is  where  we 
stand.  Victor  Hugo  remains  a  great  poet — the  great- 
est of  lyrical  poets.  But  the  century  has  torn  itself 
from  him,  the  scientific  idea  pushes  itself  to  the  front. 
In  *'  Ruy  Bias  "  it  is  the  rhetorician  whom  we  applaud. 
The  philosopher  and  the  moralist  causes  us  to  smile. 


II. 

LET  us  now  turn  to  the  reception  of  M.  Ernest 
J  Renan  at  the  Academie  Frangaise.  This  recep- 
tion was  also  a  great  Hterary  festival.  It  was  a  great 
triumph  for  liberty  of  thought ;  that  must  be  admitted 
before  everything  else.  To  make  myself  better  under- 
stood I  shall  distinguish  between  the  Renan  of  the 
legend  and  the  Renan  of  reality.  I  must  call  to  mind 
the  publication  of  the  "  Vie  de  J^sus."  It  was  a 
thunderclap.  M.  Renan  was  unknown  to  the  general 
public.  He  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being  an 
erudite  writer,  a  distinguished  linguist,  who  did  not 
go  beyond  the  limits  of  a  certain  coterie.  And  all  at 
once,  in  one  day,  his  figure  stood  out  before  all  France, 
with  the  terrifying  profile  of  Antichrist.  He  com- 
mitted the  sacrilege  of  disturbing  Jesus  on  his  ctoss. 
He  was  pictured  in  the  likeness  of  Satan,  with  two 
horns  and  a  tail.  The  fright  was  greatest  among  the 
clergy  ,•  all  the  country  curates  ordered  the  bells  rung, 
and  excommunicated  him  in  their  sermons  ;  the  bishops 
sent  forth  charges  and  pamphlets,  the  Pope  paled  under 
his  triple  crown.  It  was  said  that  the  Jesuits  burned 
the  editions  of  "  The  Life  of  Jesus"  as  soon  as  the  pub- 
lisher put  them  on  the  market,  which  assured  for  the 
book  an  inexhaustible  sale.  As  for  the  public,  the 
feeling  became  greater  and  greater,  fed  by  the  fright  of 
the  clergy.  The  devotees  made  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
and   terrified  bad  children  by  threatening  them  witk 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE,  7 1 

M.  Renan  ;  while  the  indifferent  ones  became  interested 
in  this  audacious  author,  and  endowed  him  with  gigantic 
proportions.  He  became  the  spirit  that  denied ;  he 
symbolized  science  killing  faith.  In  a  word,  our  cen- 
tury of  scientific  inquiry  became  incarnate  in  him.  If 
you  add  that  he  passed  for  an  unfrocked  priest,  you 
complete  the  picture  of  this  rebel  archangel,  modern 
Satan,  conqueror  of  God,  suppressing  the  Creator  with 
the  weapon  of  the  century. 

Such  was  the  legendary  Renan,  and  such  he  has 
remained  for  certain  people.  If  we  pass  to  the  true 
Renan  we  are  surprised.  The  savant  remains  an 
erudite,  but  he  has  also  become  a  poet.  Picture  to 
yourself  a  man  with  the  temperament  of  a  believer,  a 
contemplative  creature  growing  up  to  manhood  in  a 
Breton  fog.  He  had  been  brought  up  as  a  strict  Cath- 
olic; his  first  desire  had  been  to  become  a  priest, 
and  his  whole  education  had  tended  toward  the 
sacerdotal  office.  He  comes  to  Paris,  he  enters  the 
seminary  steeped  in  the  deep  religious  teachings  of  the 
country  from  whence  he  came.  Then  a  corner  in  his 
brain,  silent  until  that  day,  began  to  work.  Was  it  a 
breath  of  Paris  which  had  wafted  over  him  in  passing? 
Was  it  a  far-away  predisposition  which  awakened  in 
the  man,  that  had  had  its  first  germs  in  the  child  ?  He 
alone  could  tell  us  in  confessing  the  sins  of  his  boy- 
hood. Whatever  it  was,  a  dissenting  voice  arose  in  him. 
From  that  moment  the  priest  was  dead.  It  is  always 
the  same  story :  the  first  shiver  of  doubt,  then  the 
sad  combat  followed  by  the  final  overflow.  M.  Renan 
quitted  the  seminary,  and  commenced  the  study 
of  languages.  But  that  which  was  not  dead  in  him 
was  the  ideal  and  the  spiritual.     All  the  beliefs  of  his 


72  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

youth  which  he  had  battled  with  and  crushed  had 
returned  upon  him  and  found  another  vent,  and  were 
given  expression  in  a  burst  of  beautiful  poetry.  It  is  a 
curious  instance  of  the  tyrannical  force  that  a  man*s 
nature  has  over  him.  Since  he  could  not  be  a  priest, 
he  would  be  a  poet ;  with  nothing  else  would  his  tem- 
perament be  satisfied.  Without  doubt,  a  nature  less 
steeped  in  religious  fantasy,  brought  up  in  a  less  misty 
country,  would  have  gone  to  the  end  of  the  scientific 
research.  But  M.  Renan  stops  halfway,  carrying  in 
his  breast  an  eternal  regret  for  his  lost  faith  and  the 
vague  happiness  of  doubting  his  own  doubts.  This 
transformation  of  faith  into  poetry  is  characteristic  of 
him.  He  is  no  longer  a  believer,  but  he  is  not  a 
savant.  I  see  in  him  a  man  of  transition.  The  spirit 
of  romanticism  has  gone  along  the  same  path. 

Yes,  M.  Renan  is  a  pantheist  of  the  romantic  school. 
It  has  been  advanced  that  though  he  replaces  God  by 
the  worship  o*'"  humanity,  he  has  not  exactly  denied 
the  divinity  of  '"hrist,  as  he  has  made  him  the  most 
perfect,  the  most  lovable  of  men.  I  have  no  desire  to 
lose  myself  in  the  intricacies  of  this  philosophical  ques- 
tion; I  shall  not  examine  his  theories  of  the  slow 
formation  of  a  superior  humanity,  of  a  group  of  intel- 
lectual Messiahs,  reigning  on  earth  by  the  power  of 
their  faculties.  It  is  sufficient  for  me  that  he,  like 
Victor  Hugo,  is  a  deist,  and  that  his  beliefs,  though 
possessed  of  more  equilibrium,  are  not  less  the  imag- 
inations of  the  lyrical  poet,  as  far  away  from  the  affir- 
mations of  dogma,  as  from  the  affirmations  of  science. 
Being  neither  a  believer  nor  a  savant,  he  remains  a 
poet.  He  hovers  in  the  vagueness  dear  to  contempla- 
tive souls.     His  thought  has  no  firm  simplicity.     You 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  73 

perceive  what  very  possibly  his  opinions  may  be ;  but 
does  he  really  believe  them?  This  is  something  no 
one  can  tell,  for  he  dislikes  any  definite  conclusion. 
And  if,  leaving  the  philosopher,  we  pass  to  the  writer, 
we  find  the  romanticist  in  all  his  charm  and  greatness. 
I  do  not  mean  that  it  is  the  superb  bewilderment  of 
Victor  Hugo,  his  magnificent  antithesis,  his  piling  up 
of  grand  words  and  images.  It  is  rather  Lamartine's 
flowing  honey,  a  beatific  and  religious  reverie,  a  style 
which  has  the  voluptuousness  of  a  caress  and  the 
unction  of  a  prayer.  The  phrase  kneels  and  swoons 
away  in  a  vapor  of  incense,  in  the  mystical  light  of  the 
stained  glass  windows.  You  immediately  conclude 
that  M.  Renan  has  entered  into  the  Gothic  cathedral 
of  romanticism,  and  that  he  has  remained  there  not  as 
a  believer,  but  as  a  writer.  We  find  the  poet  still  lin- 
gering midway  between  the  erudite  and  the  savant,  as 
he  had  remained  midway  in  the  formulas  of  philosophy. 
This  is  the  difference  between  the  M.  Renan  of  the 
legend  and  the  M.  Renan  of  reality.  I  must  add  that 
the  stubborn  ones,  the  bigoted  Catholics  and  fools, 
who  cleave  to  a  once  conceived  idea,  continue  to  look 
upon  M.  Renan  as  Antichrist.  Years  have  passed 
since  its  publication,  and  the  majority  of  the  reading 
public  have  come  to  look  upon  "The  Life  of  Jesus" 
as  a  beautiful  poem,  hiding  under  its  flowery  language 
a  few  of  the  modern  exegetical  affirmations.  All  the 
truths  are  not  touched  upon ;  only  a  choice  is  made 
by  an  artistic  hand,  and  embellished  by  the  most  loving 
imagination.  To  fully  understand  M.  Renan's  process 
you  need  only  compare  his  book  with  that  of  the  Ger- 
man writer  Strauss,  with  his  harsh  discussions  and  his 
tedious  demonstrations  ;  in  him  we  find  but  the  erudite 


74  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

and  learned  writer,  whose  style  is  devoid  of  ornament, 
and  whose  sole  thought  is  the  truth.  Thus,  at  the 
present  day,  for  the  greater  number  of  readers,  M. 
Renan,  the  terrible,  has  become  the  charming  M. 
Renan.  He  is  accepted  as  a  melodist,  who  certainly 
committed  a  wrong  in  choosing  so  sacred  a  subject  to 
sing  to  his  music;  but,  truth  to  tell,  he  has  written 
some  very  beautiful  music.  And  it  is  the  melodist  to 
whom  the  Acad^mie  Fran^aise  has  opened  its  doors. 
I  have  reached  my  point  now ;  I  contend  that  the 
Academic  has  feted  the  rhetorician  and  not  the  savant. 
This  literary  fete  was  again  given  in  honor  of  a  lyric 
poet. 

But  we  must  be  severe,  for  in  our  complaisant  and 
hypocritical  century  severity  alone  can  make  the 
nation  virile.  I  do  not  dispute  the  fact  that  the 
Academic  has  made  a  good  choice  in  opening  its  arms 
to  M.  Renan,  and  that  the  opportunity  very  rarely 
offers  for  them  to  make  as  good  a  one.  M.  Renan, 
whose  erudition  is  very  extended,  is,  besides,  one  of 
our  most  refined  prose  writers.  Literally,  his  little 
finger  is  worth  more  than  ten  academicians  taken  hap- 
hazard from  the  benches  of  the  learned  company. 
Only  his  election  must  not  be  looked  upon  as  a  tri- 
umph of  the  modern  scientific  formula  in  this  institu- 
tion. There  is  under  this  famous  cupola  only  another 
poet.  The  true  courage  consisted  in  naming  M.  Renan 
after  the  resounding  success  of  his  "  Life  of  Jesus." 
To-day  he  has  forced  open  the  doors  by  his  charm- 
ing personality ;  he  is  not  seated  in  his  chair  with  his 
horns  and  his  tail,  but  crowned  by  the  hands  of  ladies. 
Nobody  fears  him  any  longer ,  he  has  even  become 
the  refuge  of  religious  souls,  torn  by  and  restless  under 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  75 

the  dry  and  naked  science  of  to-day.  Therefore  let 
them  not  make  such  a  fuss  over  the  HberaHsm  of  the 
Acad^mie.  It  has  welcomed  a  writer;  that  is  as  it 
should  be.  Modern  science  has  had  no  reason  to  cry 
out  "  Victory  !  "  as  at  the  solemn  receptions  of  Claude 
Bernard  and  M.  Littre. 

What  appears  to  me  most  characteristic  in  M. 
Renan's  discourse  is  the  manner  in  which  he  accepts 
the  discoveries  of  science — as  a  versatile  idealist  who 
utilizes  everything  in  order  to  continue  and  enlarge  his 
dreams.  A  quotation  from  the  speech  made  at  his 
reception  will  explain  what  I  mean :  "  The  sky,  as  we 
see  it  by  means  of  modern  astronomy,  is  vastly 
superior  to  that  solid  vault  studded  by  brilliant  stars, 
supported  by  columns  some  distance  away  in  the 
clouds,  with  which  the  past  centuries  were  content. 
...  If  I  sometimes  have  melancholy  remembrances 
of  the  nine  choirs  of  angels  who  surrounded  the  seven 
planets,  and  of  that  crystalline  sea  which  rolled  at  the 
feet  of  the  Eternal  One,  I  console  myself  by  thinking 
that  the  infinite  into  which  our  eyes  plunge  is  a  real 
infinite,  a  thousand  times  more  sublime  to  the  true 
thinker  than  all  the  azure  circles  of  the  paradise  of 
Angelo  da  Fiesole.  How  much  do  the  profound  views 
of  the  chemist  and  crystallographer  on  the  atom 
exceed  the  vague  notion  possessed  by  the  scholastic 
philosophers  about  matter!  The  triumph  of  science 
is  really  the  triumph  of  idealism  !  "  Listen  to  this  cry; 
it  is  typical ;  it  is  the  wail  of  the  poet  who,  each  time 
that  you  force  the  regions  of  the  unknown  to  a  further 
distance,  willingly  consents  to  move  with  you,  but  only 
for  the  privilege  of  installing  himself  to  dream  in  a 
mysterious  corner,  to  whose  depths  you  have  not  yet 


76  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

descended.  As  M.  Renan  himself  states  in  his  speech, 
a  savant  does  not  admit  the  unknown,  the  ideal,  but  as 
a  problem  whose  solution  he  is  trying  to  find.  A  fresh 
proof  that  M.  Renan  is  not  a  savant  is  that  he  must 
have  his  mysterious  corner,  and  the  more  you  contract 
this  corner,  the  further  you  carry  it  to  the  depth  of  the 
infinite,  the  more  he  seems  to  be  enchanted ;  because, 
as  he  will  tell  you,  his  dream  becomes  more  distant 
and  sublime.  Thus:  " The  triumph  of  science  is  really 
the  triumph  of  idealism."  I  already  knew  this  phrase 
from  having  heard  it  used  so  often  as  conclusive  argu- 
ment. It  is  the  refuge  of  those  idealists  who  do  not 
deny  modern  science.  As  they  believe  that  there  will 
always  be  an  ultimate  mystery  about  the  nature  of 
matter  and  life  that  can  never  be  solved,  they  move 
their  ideal  further  away  at  each  new  discovery,  saying 
that  even  though  hunted  from  belief  to  belief  they 
always  have  this  final  point  as  an  unassailable  refuge. 
This  is  a  very  elastic  faith  in  the  ideal.  I  have  a  very 
slight  philosophical  esteem  for  these  dreamers  who  at 
each  step  of  science  ask  for  a  rest  to  indulge  in  a 
dream,  and  leave  it  but  to  move  on  further  and  to  find 
a  more  retired  corner  for  their  reveries.  M.  Renan  is 
one  of  these  poets  of  the  ideal  who  follow  the  savants 
with  faltering  steps,  and  who  profit  by  each  halt  to 
gather  fresh  flowers. 

His  great  success — I  speak  of  his  widespread  and 
popular  success — is  due  to  his  style.  In  Germany 
Strauss,  wrapped  up  in  the  terseness  of  his  argument, 
had  simply  stirred  a  small  portion  of  the  public,  the 
erudites  and  the  theologians ;  the  great  crowd  of 
worldly  people  were  simply  indifferent.  With  us,  on 
the  contrary,  M.  Renan,  much  less  frank  in  his  nega- 


TQ  THE  YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  77 

tion,  but  treating  the  subject  with  armfuls  of  rhetorical 
flowers,  had  infatuated  the  whole  public.  It  is  only 
another  proof  of  the  omnipotence  of  form.  The  suc- 
cess of  "  The  Life  of  Jesus "  is  but  the  success  of 
"  Ruy  Bias  " ;  it  is  the  language,  the  sound,  the  color, 
the  odor,  which  takes  captive  through  the  senses  a 
keenly  artistic  people.  In  all  this  there  is  a  nervous, 
a  material  effect.  When  a  master  of  style  is  a  genius, 
he  is  the  undisputed  master  of  the  multitude ;  he  takes 
them  boldly  and  leads  them  where  he  will.  A  savant 
creates  a  vacuum  in  his  audience,  while  a  poet  arouses 
enthusiasm  even  among  his  adversaries.  This  is  the 
explanation  of  that  outburst  of  romanticism  in  the 
first  half  of  the  century.  In  the  same  way  to-day  we 
applaud  vociferously  as  a  breath  of  lyrical  poetry 
passes  by  us. 

However,  it  must  be  admitted  that  \k{\^  furore  about 
form  is  transitory.  People  admit  the  power  of  the 
writer,  then  shrug  their  shoulders  when  he  poses  as 
a  thinker  or  savant.  And  this  is  the  punishment  of 
those  timid  ones  who  dared  not  carry  their  thought 
out  to  its  true  end,  of  those  clever  fellows  who  tried  to 
win  over  each  one  by  flattering  all.  Yes,  this  artifice 
of  ambitious  souls,  this  process  of  letting  fall  only 
pleasing,  well-clothed  truths,  this  skillfully  balanced 
way  of  writing  which  is  not  lying,  yet  is  not  the  truth, 
all  these  hypocritical  tactics  rebound  against  those 
who  use  them,  either  from  their  temperament  or 
through  shrewd  calculation.  One  day,  after  having 
been  greeted  with  acclamations,  they  find  themselves 
alone,  celebrated,  it  is  true,  filled  with  honors  and 
recompenses,  but  they  enjoy  the  reputation  of  be- 
ing   only   flute    players   when    they   were    eager   for 


78  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OP  PRANCE. 

the    fadeless    glory    of    great    thinkers    and    famous 
savants. 

I  will  not  conclude  in  my  own  words.  I  read  a 
severe  criticism  which  struck  me  as  very  forcible,  and 
I  give  it  without  comment :  "  A  man  like  M.  Renan 
ought  to  have  some  influence  over  his  times,  and  he 
has  none.  He  has  never  been  taken  seriously.  In 
vain  he  approaches  the  deepest  problems  ;  no  one 
admits  his  solutions  ;  only  levity  and  laughter  have 
been  seen  where  the  philosopher,  the  savant,  has 
looked  for  an  entire  and  austere  attention.  The  writer 
alone  will  live ;  the  future  will  admit  that  he  has 
fathomed  all  the  subtleties  of  language,  and  that  in 
spite  of  the  crowd  of  to-day *s  musicians  and  the  clash 
of  the  brass,  the  sweet  notes  of  his  oboe  swell  out, 
rising  above  everything  else.  Posterity  will  class  him 
among  the  illustrious  failures,  among  those  who,  in 
a  time  of  change  and  awakening,  chose  the  part  of 
sweet  leisure  and  flowery  dreams," 


III. 

BY  a  species  of  irony  it  almost  always  happens  that 
the  newly  elected  academician  is  obliged  to  pro- 
nounce a  eulogy  on  a  dead  member  whose  style  and 
temperament  are  directly  opposite  to  his.  This  is  just 
what  has  happened,  and  you  can  easily  understand 
how  strange  it  seems  to  hear  M.  Renan  scattering  his 
flowery  phrases  over  the  life  and  work  of  Claude  Ber- 
nard, the  savant,  who  had  put  his  life  and  the  whole 
force  of  his  powerful  intellect  into  the  experimental 
method.  The  spectacle  is  one  curious  enough  to 
startle  you.  I  wish  to  place  the  haughty  and  stern 
form  of  Claude  Bernard  face  to  face  with  Victor  Hugo 
and  M.  Renan.  It  will  be  science  facing  rhetoric, 
naturalism  facing  idealism. 

The  pleasant  side  to  this  task  lies  in  this  fact,  that 
I  shall  not  myself  have  to  interfere  at  all.  M.  Renan 
himself  will  furnish  me  with  all  the  comparisons 
I  need  in  his  discourse  at  the  reception.  I  find  there 
a  number  of  decisive  arguments  in  favor  of  naturalism. 
It  will  be  sufficient  to  quote  some  passages  and  add 
a  few  lines  of  comment. 

In  the  first  place,  I  will  make  a  brief  r^sum^  of  the 
life  of  Claude  Bernard.  "  He  was  born  in  the  little 
village  of  Saint  JuHen,  near  Villefranche,  in  a  tiny 
house  surrounded  by  vineyards,  which  was  always  the 
dearest  spot  on  earth  to  him."  He  lost  his  father 
when  very  young,  was  brought  up  by  his  mother,  and 

79 


So  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

received  his  first  lessons  from  the  village  priest :  later 
he  went  to  the  college  of  Villefranche  ;  afterward  he 
started  out  in  life  as  an  apothecary's  clerk.  Even 
then  he  dreamed  of  attaining  literary  glory.  "  He 
tried  everything*  obtained  a  moderate  success  in  a 
theater  at  Lyons  with  a  little  comedy,  the  title  of 
which  he  would  never  divulge  ;  afterward  he  started 
for  Paris,  with  a  tragedy  in  five  acts  in  his  valise,  and 
a  letter."  This  letter  was  addressed  to  Marc  Girardin, 
who  persuaded  him  to  abandon  literature.  From  that 
moment  Claude  Bernard  set  out  to  find  his  vocation. 
He  met  Magendie,  whose  favorite  pupil  he  became. 
His  struggles  were  long  and  terrible.  His  marvelous 
works  are  well  known  ;  his  great  discoveries  which  did 
so  much  for  physiology.  Now  I  will  let  M.  Renan 
speak  of  him :  "  Recompenses  came  slowly  to  this 
great  career,  which,  one  might  truly  say,  could  afford 
to  pass  them  by,  because  it  was  itself  its  own  recom- 
pense. Your  companion  had  a  hard  road  to  travel  in 
the  commencement  of  his  life  as  a  savant ;  and  his 
reward  came  to  him  late.  The  Academy  of  Sciences, 
The  Sorbonne,  The  College  of  France,  The  Museum, 
desired  the  fame  of  possessing  him.  Your  assembly 
added  the  final  crown  to  these  honors  by  conferring 
on  him  the  highest  title  to  which  a  man  devoted  to 
intellectual  work  can  aspire.  A  personal  wish  of  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  HI.  called  him  to  the  senate." 

Here  I  will  stop.  This  little  bit  of  biography  is 
sufficient  to  establish  a  parallel  between  Claude  Ber- 
nard and  M.  Renan.  Notice  the  similarity  of  their 
start  in  life  ;  both  were  educated  by  a  priest,  only  the 
first  grew  to  manhood  on  a  sunny  hillside,  while  the 
other  was  steeped  from  his  childhood  in  the  ocean's 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  8 1 

mist.  At  once  the  differences  in  temperament  showed 
themselves.  M.  Renan,  by  nature  poetical  and  re- 
ligious, dreamed  of  being  a  priest,  and  later,  notwith- 
standing his  great  erudition,  notwithstanding  his 
skepticism,  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  cloudiest 
spiritualism  ;  Claude  Bernard,  with  his  exact  mind, 
went  straight  to  experimental  science,  and  had 
but  one  end,  to  track  the  truth  from  unknown  to 
unknown.  What  I  find  most  characteristic  in  him  are 
his  first  literary  attempts.  His  tragedy  is  miserable, 
its  style  is  distressing.  You  feel  he  is  entangled  in 
a  kind  of  literature  where  his  observation,  his  analysis, 
his  logic,  are  of  no  use  to  him.  He  makes  a  mess  of 
classical  literature,  as  he  had  made  a  mess  of  romantic 
literature,  and  after  that  his  only  refuge  is  in  science. 
M.  Renan  says  himself :  "  The  period  was  more  favora- 
ble to  a  literature  of  a  commonplace  character  than 
to  deep  researches  which  are  not  adapted  to  pretty 
phrases."  These  lines  amuse  me;  they  remind  you 
that  M.  Renan  has  succeeded  in  writing  pretty  phrases 
upon  researches  hardly  susceptible  of  poetical  treat- 
ment. But  you  see  plainly  the  reasons  which  threw 
Claude  Bernard  into  science. 

But  let  us  take  up  at  once  this  question  of  style.  M. 
Renan  touches  on  this  point  in  several  places,  and  in 
excellent  words.  For  instance :  "  The  true  method  of 
investigation,  presupposing  a  firm  and  sound  judgment, 
carries  with  it  solid  qualities  of  style.  The  memoirs  of 
Letronne  and  Eugene  Burnouf,  apparently  without 
any  kind  of  form,  is  a  chef-d'wuvre  in  its  way.  The 
rule  of  good  scientific  style  is  clearness,  perfect  adap- 
tation to  the  subject,  a  complete  forgetfulness  of  self, 
in  fact,  absolute  abnegation.     It  is  also  the  rule  for 


82  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

writing  well  on  any  subject.  The  best  writer  is  the 
one  who  treats  a  great  subject  and  forgets  himself  in 
thinking  of  his  subject."  Then  again:  *'A  writer  of 
course  he  was,  and  an  excellent  writer,  because  he 
never  thought  of  being  one.  He  had  the  first  quali- 
ties of  a  writer,  which  is  not  to  think  about  the  writing 
itself.  His  style,  it  was  his  own  thoughts ;  and  as  these 
thoughts  were  always  great  and  strong,  his  style,  in 
consequence,  was  also  great  and  strong.  His  mode  of 
expression  was  excellent  for  a  scientific  man,  because 
based  upon  the  fundamental  principles  of  a  style  true, 
temperate,  appropriate  to  what  it  wished  to  explain,  or 
rather  upon  logic,  the  only  eternal  basis  of  good  style." 
And  then  again,  further  on  :  "  We  must  look  up  to  our 
masters  of  the  Port-Royal  to  find  a  like  sobriety,  an 
absence  of  all  desire  to  shine,  a  disdain  for  the  arts  of 
an  unworthy  literature  which  seeks  to  relieve  the 
austerity  of  the  subject  by  insipid  adornment." 

I  could  never  have  brought  myself  to  the  point  of 
condemning  romantic  rhetoric  in  such  severe  terms. 
M.  Renan,  carried  away  by  the  truth,  forgets  the 
"  insipid  adornment "  with  which  he  has  relieved  the 
"austerity"  of  "The  Life  of  Jesus."  How  far  away 
are  the  tirades  of  "  Ruy  Bias  "  from  logic,  "  the  only 
eternal  basis  of  good  style."  The  latter  is  the  weapon 
of  truth,  the  weapon  of  the  century.  Lyricism,  with 
its  pile  of  great  words,  its  resounding  epithets,  is  only 
an  outburst  of  madness,  only  the  insanity  of  ecstatic 
souls  who  kneel  before  the  ideal,  trembling  lest  the 
last  little  mysterious  closet  in  which  they  enshrine 
their  dreams  be  torn  from  them. 

Now  I  come  to  the  pith  of  the  quarrel,  to  the  war 
waged  by  science  against  the  ideal,  against  the  unknown- 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  83 

This  was  Claude  Bernard's  grand  role.  He  started  at 
the  beginning,  taking  nature  at  its  fountain  head,  solv- 
ing problems  by  experiment,  taking  his  stand  on  facts, 
and  at  each  step  forcing  the  unknown  to  recoil  before 
him.  Listen  to  what  M.  Renan  says :  "  The  highest 
philosophy  was  the  result  of  this  gathering  together  of 
facts  set  forth  with  an  inflexible  rigor.  Bernard  recog- 
nizes what  we  call  *  determinism'  as  the  supreme  law 
of  the  universe  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  inflexible  connection 
of  phenomena  which  prevents  any  supernatural  agent 
from  interfering  to  modify  the  result.  There  are  not, 
as  it  has  often  been  stated,  two  orders  of  science :  these 
absolutely  precise,  and  those  fearful  of  derangement  by 
mysterious  forces.  That  great  mystery  of  physiology 
which  Bichat  admits  still,  that  capricious  power  which 
some  people  pretend  can  offer  a  resistance  to  matter 
and  makes  life  a  sort  of  miracle,  Bernard  rejects 
entirely.  'The  obscure  idea  of  cause,'  he  says, 
*  should  be  relegated  to  the  origin  of  things  ;  it  should 
give  place  in  science  to  the  idea  of  the  connection  of 
conditions.* "  And  then,  further  on,  M.  Renan  adds  : 
"  Claude  Bernard  did  not  pretend  to  be  ignorant  of  the 
fact  that  the  problems  which  he  stirred  up  touched 
upon  the  gravest  philosophical  questions.  This  did 
not  move  him.  He  did  not  think  it  was  the  role  of  the 
savant  to  worry  himself  over  the  consequences  which 
jpiight  come  out  of  his  researches.  He  belonged  to  no 
sect.  He  was  searching  after  the  truth,  and  that  was 
iall."  Here  we  have  the  very  spirit  of  modern  science. 
We  have  given  up  the  problems  in  question ;  actual 
science  has  ordered  a  revision  of  the  pretended  truths 
which  the  past  laid  down  under  the  name  of  certain 
dogmas.     We  study  nature  and  man,  we  classify  data, 


84  TO  THE  YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

we  advance  step  by  step,  employing  the  experimental 
and  analytical  method  ;  but  we  take  good  care  not  to 
draw  conclusions,  because  the  inquiry  still  continues, 
and  none  can  flatter  themselves  as  yet  to  know  the  last 
word.  We  do  not  deny  God  ;  we  endeavor  to  mount 
up  to  him  by  making  an  analysis  of  the  world.  If  he 
is  at  the  head  of  it  all  we  shall  find  it  out,  science  will 
\  reveal  it  to  us.  For  the  moment  we  put  him  to  one 
side,  we  do  not  want  a  supernatural  element,  a  super- 
human axiom  which  will  distract  us  in  our  observations. 
Those  who  begin  by  assuming  an  Absolute  introduce 
into  their  observations  of  men  and  things  a  purely 
imaginative  conception,  a  subjective  dream,  more  or 
less  attractive  in  its  aesthetic  charm,  but  utterly  futile 
as  far  as  truth  and  morality  are  concerned. 

At  this  point  I  leave  the  scientific  and  enter  the 
literary  field.  The  naturalistic  formula  in  literature, 
such  as  I  shall  now  define  it,  is  identical  with  the  natu- 
ralistic formula  in  the  sciences,  and  particularly  in 
physiology.  It  is  the  same  inquiry  lifted  from  physio- 
logical phenomena  up  to  passionate  and  social  facts; 
the  spirit  of  the  century  gives  an  impulse  to  all  intel- 
lectual manifestations,  the  novelist  who  studies  man- 
ners completes  the  work  of  the  physiologist  who  studies 
the  organisms.  I  quote  M.  Renan  again :  "  Though 
Claude  Bernard  speaks  but  little  on  social  questions, 
his  was  too  great  a  mind  not  to  apply  to  them  his  gen- 
eral principles.  This  conquering  character  of  science 
he  admits  even  in  the  sciences  of  humanity."  ''The 
active  role  of  the  experimental  sciences,"  he  says,  *'  does 
not  stop  at  the  physical,  chemical,  and  physiological 
sciences,  it  extends  to  the  active  and  moral  sciences. 
We  begin   to    understand   that   it  is   not  sufficient  to 


TO  THE    YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  85 

remain  an  inert  spectator  of  good  and  evil,  enjoying 
the  one  and  guarding  one's  self  from  the  other. 
Modern  morals  aspire  to  a  much  grander  role ;  they 
search  out  the  causes,  endeavor  to  explain  and  act  upon 
them,  to  master  good  and  evil,  to  bring  the  former  forth 
and  develop  it,  to  do  battle  with  the  latter  and  destroy 
it."  These  words  are  strong  ;  they  contain  all  the  high 
and  severe  morality  of  the  contemporaneous  novelists 
of  the  naturalistic  school,  which  people  are  imbecile 
enough  to  accuse  of  obscenity  and  depravity.  Enlarge 
the  role  of  the  experimental  sciences,  extend  them  to 
the  study  of  the  passions,  the  painting  of  manners,  and 
you  obtain  romances  which  search  out  the  causes,  which 
explain  them,  which  gather  together  human  data  in 
order  to  be  the  master  of  the  surroundings  and  of  man, 
so  as  to  develop  the  good  elements  and  exterminate 
the  bad.  We  are  doing  a  work  identical  with  that  of 
the  savants.  It  is  impossible  to  base  any  legislation 
whatsoever  on  the  lies  of  the  idealists.  On  the  con- 
trary, from  the  true  data,  which  the  naturalists  bring 
forth,  a  better  society  can  some  day  be  established, 
which  will  live  by  logic  and  method.  From  the 
moment  that  we  are  truthful,  we  become  moral. 

This  is  the  picture  which  M.  Renan  draws  of  the 
labors  of  the  savant :  **  He  passes  his  life  in  an  obscure 
laboratory  in  the  College  de  France ;  and  there,  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  repulsive  sights,  breathing  the 
atmosphere  of  the  dead,  his  hands  steeped  in  blood, 
he  discovers  the  inmost  secrets  of  life ;  and  the  truths 
which  come  out  from  this  gloomy  room  dazzle  those 
who  are  able  to  appreciate  them.  Claude  Bernard 
himself  says :  *  The  physiologist  is  not  a  man  of  the 
world,  he  is  a  savant,  he  is  a  man  absorbed  in  a  scien- 


S6  TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

tific  idea  which  he  is  following  up ;  he  no  longer  hears 
the  cries  of  the  animals,  he  no  longer  sees  the  flowing 
blood — he  sees  but  his  idea,  and  perceives  only  the 
organisms  which  hide  the  problems  from  him  which  he 
wishes  to  discover.  In  the  same  manner  the  surgeon 
is  not  stopped  by  the  cries  and  sobs  of  his  patient, 
because  he  sees  but  his  idea  and  the  object  of  the 
operation  before  him.  Still,  again,  the  anatomist  does 
not  feel  that  he  is  in  a  horrible  charnel  house  ;  under 
the  influence  of  a  scientific  idea  he  delightedly  follows 
a  nervous  thread  in  the  swelling  and  putrid  flesh  which 
for  another  man  would  be  an  object  of  horror  and 
disgust.' "  In  face  of  such  a  picture  will  you  not 
pardon  some  audacities  to  novelists  of  the  naturalistic 
school,  who,  for  love  of  the  truth,  follow  with  delight 
the  derangements  produced  by  a  passion  in  a  person 
bad  to  the  marrow  of  his  bones  ?  Will  you  reproach 
us  with  our  horrible  charnel  houses,  the  blood  which 
we  cause  to  flow,  the  sobs  which  we  force  on  our 
readers?  Nevertheless  we  hope  that  our  gloomy 
rooms  may  send  forth  some  truths  which  will  dazzle 
those  who  are  able  to  appreciate  them. 

Such  is  the  grand  figure  of  Claude  Bernard.  He 
represents  modern  science  in  his  disdain  for  mere 
excellence  of  form,  in  his  vigorous  and  methodical 
examination  free  from  any  concession  to  mystery  and 
reverie.  He  admits  no  irrational  source  such  as  a 
revelation,  a  tradition,  a  conventional  and  arbitrary 
authority.  He  asserts  that  in  the  problem  of  man 
everything  ought  to  be  studied  and  explained  through 
the  sole  tool  of  experiment  and  analysis.  In  a  word, 
this  man  is  the  incarnation  of  truth  vouched  for  and 
proved.     And  besides,  what  a  decisive  influence  he  has 


TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  87 

had  on  his  times.  Each  one  of  his  discoveries  has  broad- 
ened human  intelligence.  His  scholars  crowded  around 
him.  He  left  data  behind  him  over  which  future  savants 
Avill  work.  And  now  turn  back  to  M.  Renan's  soli- 
tude, the  fine  writer  who  idealized  his  borrowed  ideas 
and  his  scholarly  discoveries.  Evidently  he  is  but  a 
charmer,  a  late  dreamer ;  the  strength  of  the  century 
belongs  to  Claude  Bernard.  That  magnificent  flight  of 
poetry,  Victor  Hugo's  lyricism,  is  but  a  superb  piece 
of  music  beside  Claude  Bernard's  virile  conquests  of 
the  mystery  of  life.  While  the  lyrical  poet  mixes 
everything  up,  enlarges  the  unknown  into  a  wider  field 
in  which  to  parade  the  follies  of  his  imagination,  the 
physiologist  diminishes  the  field  of  lies,  restricts  human 
ignorance,  honors  reason  and  justice.  Here  is  where  I 
find  the  only  true  morality ;  it  is  from  this  spectacle 
that  great  lessons  and  great  thoughts  should  spring. 


IV. 

LET  us  now  see  how  this  formula  of  modern  science 
/  is  applicable  to  literature.  In  the  first  place  I  am 
well  aware  of  the  argument  which  the  lyric  poets 
advance :  that  there  is  science  and  that  there  is  poetry. 
Certainly  there  is  no  idea  of  suppressing  the  poets. 
We  are  merely  trying  to  put  them  in  their  proper  place, 
and  to  establish  the  fact  that  they  are  not  the  ones 
who,  walking  at  the  head  of  the  century,  preach  to  us 
of  morality  and  patriotism. 

In  the  first  days  of  the  world  poetry  was  the  dream 
of  science  with  this  newborn  race.  Of  the  two  facul- 
ties belonging  to  man,  to  feel  and  to  understand,  the 
first  brought  forth  poets,  the  second  savants.  Take 
man  in  his  cradle  :  his  senses  are  simply  awakening,  he 
is  in  ecstasy  over  everything  ;  he  sees  not  the  reality, 
he  lives  in  a  land  of  dreams.  But  as  he  grows  older  a 
curiosity  to  find  out  the  meaning  of  things  takes  pos- 
session of  him  ;  his  awakening  intelligence  gropes 
about ;  he  puts  forth  hypothesis  upon  hypothesis ;  he 
reaches  a  condition  in  which  he  discovers  ideas  of  a  cer- 
tain breadth  and  with  a  certain  reasonableness  to  them. 
At  this  age  he  is  a  poet ;  the  universe  is  but  an  immense 
mystery  in  which  he  parades  his  conceptions  of  its 
nature.  In  a  little  while  certain  more  exact  concep- 
tions demand  recognition ;  his  mystery,  his  ideal  is 
narrowed,  he  ends  by  lodging  it  in  the  distant  horizon, 
and   in   the  obscure  causes    of   life.     The  history  of 


TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  89 

humanity  is  parallel  to  that  of  this  man.  The  ideal 
is  the  outcome  of  our  first  ignorance.  As  science 
advances  the  ideal  recedes.  M.  Renan  transforms  it, 
which  comes  to  the  same  thing.  I  do  not  wish  to  enter 
upon  a  philosophical  discussion,  nor  to  affirm  that  one 
day  science  will  completely  suppress  the  unknown.  It 
is  not  necessary  for  us  to  trouble  ourselves  about  that ; 
all  we  have  to  do  is  to  go  straight  ahead  in  the  con- 
quest of  the  true,  ready  to  accept  the  last  conclusions. 
Our  quarrel  with  the  idealists  lies  simply  in  the  fact 
that  we  siart  from  observation  and  experiment,  while 
they  start  from  an  absolute.  Science  is,  then,  to  speak 
truly,  but  explained  poetry  ;  the  savant  is  a  poet  who 
replaces  imaginary  theories  by  the  exact  study  of  men 
and  things.  In  our  time  it  is  but  a  question  of  tem 
perament ;  the  brains  of  some  are  so  constituted  that 
it  appears  to  them  grander  and  more  sensible  to  take 
up  again  the  old  dreams,  to  look  at  the  world  with 
blind  madness  and  through  the  medium  of  their 
deranged  nerves ;  others  feel  that  the  only  state  that 
savors  of  sanity  or  offers  any  possibility  of  real  great- 
ness for  an  individual,  as  for  a  nation,  is  by  taking  firm 
hold  of  realities,  and  by  placing  our  intelligence  and  our 
human  affairs  on  the  solid  foundation  of  truth.  The 
former  are  the  lyric  poets,  the  romanticists ;  the  latter 
are  the  naturalists.  And  the  future  depends  upon  the 
choice  which  coming  generations  will  make  between 
the  two  schools.  It  remains  for  the  young  people  to 
determine  which  it  shall  be. 

For  some  time  past  a  great  many  senseless  things 
have  been  said  about  the  naturalistic  formula.  The 
press  has  put  forth  some  very  foolish  theories,  which 
concern  me  personally.     For  three  years  I  have  vainly 


90  TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

tried  to  explain  that  I  am  not  an  innovator,  that  I  am 
not  trying  to  boom  an  invention.  My  only  role  has 
been  that  of  a  critic  who  studies  his  times,  and  who 
tries  to  show,  supported  by  strong  proofs,  in  what 
direction  the  century  appears  to  be  moving.  I  find 
the  naturalistic  formula  in  the  eighteenth  century ;  in 
fact,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  it  seems  to  have  started 
with  the  beginning  of  the  world.  I  have  shown  how 
splendidly  it  has  been  developed  in  our  national  litera- 
ture by  such  men  as  Stendhal  and  Balzac ;  I  have  said 
that  our  present  novels  but  follow  the  works  of  these 
masters,  and  I  have  mentioned  as  in  the  first  rank  MM. 
Gustave  Flaubert,  Edmond  and  Jules  Goncourt,  and 
Alphonse  Daudet.  With  such  examples  before  them 
how  can  anyone  say  that  I  have  invented  a  theory  for 
my  own  particular  use  ?  What  fools  some  men  are  to 
represent  me  to  the  public  as  a  man  puffed  out  with 
pride,  who  wishes  to  impose  his  form  of  expression  as 
the  only  true  style,  and  who  bases  upon  his  works  all 
the  past  and  the  future  of  French  literature ! 

In  truth,  this  statement  is  the  height  of  bHndness  and 
bad  faith.  Do  they  hear  me  to-day?  Do  they  under- 
stand that  the  scientific  formula  of  Claude  Bernard  is 
but  the  formula  of  the  naturalistic  writers?  This 
formula  belongs  to  the  entire  century.  It  is  in  no 
sense  mine ;  I  am  not  a  fool  to  the  extent  of  wishing 
to  substitute  my  books  for  the  ages  of  travail,  for  the 
long  labor  of  human  genius.  My  humble  ambition 
goes  no  further  than  the  desire  to  state  precisely  the 
nature  of  the  present  evolution,  to  separate  it  from  the 
romantic  period,  to  clear  away  the  ground,  in  short,  so 
as  to  make  room  for  the  fatal  struggle  now  in  progress 
between  idealists  and  naturalists,  and  to  predict  victory 


TO   THE   VOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  91 

ultimately  for  the  latter.  Outside  of  these  theoretical 
discussions  I  have  never  posed  save  as  the  most  deter- 
mined follower  of  the  truth. 

Yes,  our  naturalistic  formula  is  identical  with  that  of 
the  physiologists,  the  chemists,  and  the  physicians. 
The  use  of  this  formula  in  our  literature  dates  from  the 
last  century,  from  the  first  awakenings  of  our  modern 
science.  The  ball  has  been  set  going  and  the  inquiry 
will  become  universal.  Several  times  already  I  have 
written  the  story  of  this  vast  movement  which  is  sweep- 
ing us  into  the  future.  It  has  remodeled  history  and 
criticism,  freeing  them  from  the  scholastic  formulas 
that  were  based  on  haphazard  observation;  it  has 
transformed  the  novel  and  the  drama,  beginning  with 
Diderot  and  Rousseau  down  to  Balzac  and  his  follow- 
ers. Can  anyone  deny  these  facts  ?  and  do  they  not 
include  some  hundred  years  in  our  history  in  which  we 
see  the  scientific  spirit  throwing  all  the  beautiful  clas- 
sical rules  aside,  and  after  taking  its  first  steps  in  the 
romantic  movement,  enjoying  its  final  triumph  in  the 
works  of  the  naturalistic  writers  ?  Then,  again,  I  am 
not  the  naturalistic  school :  that  includes  every  writer 
who,  willingly  or  not,  employs  the  scientific  formula, 
^nd  taking  up  the  study  of  the  world  by  observation 
and  analysis,  denies  the  absolute,  or  any  revealed  or 
irrational  ideal.  The  naturalistic  school  boasts  of  such 
men  as  Diderot,  Rousseau,  Balzac,  and  Stendhal,  and 
twenty  others  besides.  They  make  a  grotesque  carica- 
ture of  me  when  they  put  me  forward  as  a  pope,  as  the 
chief  of  a  new  school.  We  have  no  religion,  therefore 
no  one  can  be  a  pope  with  us.  As  to  our  school,  it  is 
too  large  to  be  obedient  to  one  chief.  It  is  not  like 
the  romantic  school,  which  is  incarnate  in  one  individ- 


92  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

ual  fantasy,  in  the  genius  of  one  poet.  It  does  not  live 
by  its  mode  of  expression ;  it  exists,  on  the  contrary, 
by  a  formula ;  and  on  this  ground  the  day  we  elect  a 
chief  we  will  choose,  above  anyone  else,  a  savant  like 
Claude  Bernard.  If  but  a  short  time  ago  I  devoted  so 
much  time  to  M.  Renan,  it  was  but  to  establish,  on 
positive  proofs  taken  from  an  idealist,  that  the  strength 
of  the  century  lies  in  science  and  naturalism.  Look  at 
Claude  Bernard ;  he  is  our  man,  the  man  of  the  sci- 
entific formula,  freed  from  all  jingling  of  words,  and 
such  as  the  author  of  "  The  Life  of  Jesus  "  has  depicted 
him. 

Permit  me  here  to  illustrate  my  meaning  by  a  per- 
sonal anecdote.  One  day  I  had  been  talking  to  a  very 
intelligent  journalist,  and.  had  given  him,  at  great 
length,  the  foregoing  explanations,  and  repeated  most 
strenuously  that  I  had  never  had  the  wild  ambition  to 
play  the  role  of  "  founder  of  a  new  school."  I  added 
that,  without  mentioning  Balzac,  there  were  in  con- 
temporaneous literature  older  names  than  mine,  who 
were  much  better  entitled  to  the  name  of  "  master." 
Finally  1  made  the  remark  that  the  mistake  on  the 
subject  of  my  pretensions  doubtless  came  from  the 
fact  that  I  was  the  standard  bearer  of  the  scientific 
idea.  While  I  was  speaking  the  journalist  became  very 
grave ;  he  looked  disappointed  and  bored.  He,  who 
up  to  that  time  had  been  so  very  much  interested  in 
naturalism,  interrupted  me,  crying  out :  "  What !  Is 
that  all  it  is?  Why,  then,  it's  not  even  remarkable." 
That  word  means  a  great  deal.  The  moment  that  I 
became  reasonable,  that  I  no  longer  preached  a  ridicu- 
lous religion,  the  thing  ceased  to  be  remarkable ;  as 
soon  as  naturalism,  instead   of  being  confined  to  the 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  93 

works  of  one  writer  on  the  obscene,  was  widened  so  as 
to  include  the  intellectual  movement  of  the  century,  it 
was  no  longer  worthy  of  notice. 

This  is  the  height  of  nonsense ;  they  preferred,  and 
they  still  prefer,  to  consider  naturalism  the  literature  of 
obscenity.  It  is  no  use  for  me  to  protest  and  say  that 
my  individual  efforts  involve  only  myself  and  leave  the 
formula  intact ;  they  cease  not  to  repeat  that  natural- 
ism is  an  invention  of  mine,  which  was  launched  in 
order  to  pass  "  L'Assommoir  "  off  as  a  Bible.  These 
people  notice  only  the  word.  Words,  always  words ! 
They  cannot  imagine  anything  back  of  the  words.  I 
am  naturally  a  peaceful  man,  but  I  am  seized  with  a 
ferocious  desire  to  strangle  those  who  say  before  me : 
"  Ah,  yes  !  naturalism — that  is,  nasty  words !  " 

And  who  ever  said  tliat?  I  have  almost  worn 
myself  out  repeating  that  naturalism  is  not  in  the 
words;  that  its  strength  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a 
scientific  formula.  How  many  times  shall  I  be  obliged 
to  say  again  that  it  is  simply  the  study  of  men  and 
things  by  observation  and  analysis,  entirely  free  from 
any  preconceived  idea  of  the  absolute  ?  The  question 
of  style  comes  afterward.  We  will  discuss  it  now,  if 
you  are  willing. 

I  have  explained  at  length  how,  according  to  my  way 
of  thinking,  the  romanticists  came  to  do  especially  the 
work  of  stylists  in  our  language.  This  revision  of  the 
dictionary  was  a  necessity.  Personally  I  often  have 
regretted  that  the  lyrical  poets  were  necessarily  charged 
with  this  work  when  I  see  what  wildness  and  tinsel 
they  have  put  in  the  style ;  we  have  the  work  of  years 
before  us  to  tone  down  these  materials,  and  to  reach  a 
language  as  solid  as  it  is  rich.     All  of  the  writers  of  the 


94  TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

second  half  of  the  century  are,  in  question  of  style, 
but  the  children  of  the  romanticists.  This  is  undeni- 
able. They  have  forged  a  tool  which  they  have 
bequeathed  to  us,  and  of  which  we  make  use  daily. 
The  best  of  us  owe  our  language  to  the  poets  and 
prose  writers  of  1830. 

But  who  does  not  understand  to-day  that  the  reign 
of  the  word-mongers  is  over  ?  Now  that  they  have 
given  us  the  tools,  they  have  disappeared  of  necessity. 
And  we  in  our  turn  come  to  do  our  work.  The  ground 
has  been  cleared  ;  the  question  of  language  no  longer 
stops  us ;  we  have  complete  liberty,  and  every  facility 
for  proceeding  to  the  grand  inquiry.  It  is  a  time  of  clear 
vision  in  which  the  idea  is  separated  from  the  form. 
The  romanticists  bequeathed  to  us  the  form  which  we 
need  to  adjust  after  strictly  logical  methods,  while 
retaining  its  richness.  As  to  the  idea,  it  is  acquiring 
more  and  more  influence,  and  is  made  manifest  in  the 
application  of  the  scientific  formula  to  everything,  to 
politics  as  well  as  to  literature. 

Therefore,  once  more,  naturalism  means  simply  a 
formula,  the  analytical  and  experimental  method 
namely.  You  are  a  naturalist  if  you  make  use  of  this 
method,  whatever  the  character  of  your  style.  Stendhal 
is  a  naturalist  as  much  as  Balzac,  though  the  dryness 
of  his  style  in  no  way  resembles  Balzac's  almost  epic 
grandeur;  but  both  proceed  by  analysis  and  experi- 
ment. I  can  call  to  mind  in  our  own  times  writers 
whose  literary  temperament  appears  to  be  entirely 
opposed,  and  yet  who  meet  and  join  hands  in  the  nat- 
uralistic formula.  This  is  why  naturalism  is  not  a 
school  in  the  narrow  sense  of  the  word,  and  that  is 
why  there   is  no  distinct  head,  because  it  leaves  the 


TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  95 

field  free  to  all  individualities.  Unlike  the  romantic 
school,  it  is  not  confined  to  the  style  of  one  man  nor  to 
the  folly  of  a  group.  It  is  a  literature  open  to  all  per- 
sonal eft^orts,  incarnate  in  the  evolution  of  the  human 
inteUigence  of  our  times.  You  are  not  commanded  to 
write  in  a  certain  style  nor  to  copy  a  certain  master. 
You  are  asked  to  hunt  out  and  classify  your  share  of 
human  data,  and  discover  your  corner  of  truth,  thanks 
to  the  aid  of  method. 

Here  the  writer  is  but  a  man  of  science.  His  artistic 
personality  is  subsequently  shown  in  his  style.  Here, 
too,  is  where  his  skill  comes  in.  They  repeat  this 
stupid  argument  to  us,  that  we  shall  never  reproduce 
nature  in  its  exactness.  Doubtless  we  shall  always 
intermingle  with  our  work  our  individuality  and  our 
way  of  rendering  facts.  But  there  is  an  abyss  between 
the  naturalistic  writer  who  goes  from  the  known  to  the 
unknown,  and  the  idealist  who  aspires  to  go  from  the 
unknown  to  the  known.  If  we  do  not  give  you  nature 
in  its  entirety  we  at  least  give  you  truthful  nature  as 
we  see  it  through  our  individuality,  while  the  others 
complicate  the  deviations  of  their  own  sight  with  the 
errors  of  an  imagined  nature,  which  they  accept  in  a 
haphazard  way  as  being  true.  All  we  ask  of  them  is 
to  take  up  the  study  of  the  world  in  its  first  analysis, 
without  abandoning  any  of  their  writer's  temperament. 

Does  there  exist  a  school  with  a  more  extended 
field?  I  know  very  well  that  the  thought  affects  the 
form.  And  this  is  why  I  think  that  the  language  is 
becoming  calmer  and  solider  since  the  great  hullabaloo 
of  1830.  If  we  are  condemned  to  repeat  this  music 
our  sons  will  tear  themselves  away  from  it.  I  only 
wish   we   could    attain    this   scientific    style    of  which 


96  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE, 

M.  Renan  speaks  in  such  praise.  This  would  be  a 
truly  strong  style,  such  as  suits  a  literature  founded 
on  truth  ;  it  would  be  a  style  free  from  any  fashionable 
jargon,  and  embodying  solidity  and  a  classical  breadth. 
Until  that  time  we  shall  put  flourishes  at  the  end  of 
our  phrases,  since  our  romantic  education  so  wills  it ; 
only  we  will  prepare  for  the  future  by  gathering 
together  all  the  human  data  we  can,  and  by  making 
as  much  use  of  analysis  as  our  tool  will  permit.  This 
is  naturalism,  or  if  the  word  frightens  you,  and  para- 
phrase would  make  it  clear,  the  formula  of  modern 
science  as  applied  to  literature. 


V. 

1  ADDRESS  myself  now  to  the  young  people  of 
France.  I  conjure  them  to  reflect  before  choosing 
either  the  path  of  ideaUsm  or  that  of  naturalism ;  for 
the  greatness  of  the  nation,  the  welfare  of  the  country, 
depend  to-day  upon  their  choice. 

Young  people  of  to-day  are  taught  to  applaud  the 
sonorous  verses  of  *'  Ruy  Bias  " ;  they  have  the  chant 
of  M.  Renan  given  to  them  as  a  correct  solution  of 
modern  science  and  philosophy ;  and  from  both  sides 
they  are  made  drunk  with  lyricism  ;  their  heads  are 
filled  with  words  ;  their  nervous  systems  are  distracted 
with  this  music  to  such  an  extent  that  they  come  to 
believe  that  morality  and  patriotism  only  consist  of 
the  well-turned  phrases  of  the  word-mongers.  A 
republican  journal  has  just  written  the  following: 
"  Some  few  writers,  who  have  mistaken  their  strength, 
have  declared  war  on  the  ideal ;  but  they  will  be  van- 
quished." But  it  is  not  we  who  have  declared  war 
against  idealism ;  it  is  the  century,  it  is  the  science  of 
these  last  hundred  years.  So  it  is  the  century  which 
will  be  vanquished,  science  will  be  vanquished,  Claude 
Bernard,  all  those  who  came  before  him,  and  all  his 
followers  will  be  vanquished.  Truly,  one  might  almost 
think  one's  self  dreaming  when  one  reads  such  childish 
affirmations  in  a  paper  which  prides  itself  on  its 
seriousness,  and  which  seems  to  have  no  suspicion 
that  the  French  republic  exists  to-day  by  the  force  of 


98  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

a  scientific  formula.  By  all  means  let  them  applaud 
Victor  Hugo's  grand  poetry  and  M.  Renan's  exquisite 
prose ;  nothing  can  be  more  desirable.  But  let  them 
not  say  to  young  people :  "  This  is  the  bread  which 
you  must  eat  in  order  to  be  strong ;  nourish  yourself 
on  the  ideal  and  fine  words  in  order  to  be  great."  This 
is  disastrous  counsel ;  the  ideal  and  fine  words  will  kill 
them ;  they  can  but  live  by  science.  It  is  science 
which  forces  idealism  to  flee  before  it ;  it  is  science 
which  is  preparing  us  for  the  twentieth  century.  We 
should  be  a  great  deal  happier  if  science  had  further 
reduced  the  ideal,  the  absolute,  the  unknown,  or  by 
whatever  other  name  they  choose  to  call  their  formula. 
I  will  go  still  further.  This  is  a  severe  and  frankly 
critical  work.  M.  Renan  has  stirred  up  an  unfortunate 
question,  that  of  our  defeats  in  1870.  He  puts  us 
ahead  of  our  conquerors ;  he  accuses  them  of  mere 
mind  culture ;  he  exalts  the  polished  gay  culture  of 
the  old-time  Frenchman.  We  should  find  this  sugges- 
tion very  clever  if  it  were  only  a  piece  of  flattery 
addressed  to  the  Academy.  But  we  have  evidently 
heard  M.  Renan's  convictions,  who  in  a  long  letter 
has  returned  to  the  parallel  of  the  two  nations :  one 
whose  charm  has  conquered  the  world ;  the  other 
whose  military  discipline  and  surly  temperament  have 
turned  away  those  who  love  grace.  It  is  not  my 
intention  to  examine  what  is  passing  in  Germany  to- 
day, and  I  hope  that  we  shall  never  change  our  tem- 
perament, which,  truth  to  tell,  would  be  rather  a  diflfi- 
cult  thing  to  do.  If  M.  Renan  means  to  say  that  we 
should  remain  polished  and  happy,  good  talkers,  and 
good  company,  he  is  right.  But  if  he  means  to  insin- 
uate   that    fine   talk   and  the  ideal   remain    the    only 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  99 

weapons  by  which  we  can  conquer  the  world,  that  we 
shall  be  so  much  stronger,  so  much  greater,  as  we 
remain  blindly  submissive  to  the  old  French  culture, 
represented  by  the  Academy,  I  say  that  he  expresses 
a  very  dangerous  opinion  for  the  nation.  What  we 
must  confess  is  that  in  1870  we  were  beaten  by 
science.  Undoubtedly  we  were  thrown  into  a  war 
for  which  we  were  unprepared  by  the  imbecility  of 
the  Empire.  But  is  it  not  true  that  under  more  dis- 
advantageous circumstances  France  formerly  was  not 
conquered,  when  she  lacked  everything,  even  troops 
and  money?  It  is  evident,  then,  that  at  that  time  the 
old-fashioned  French  culture,  her  gay  way  of  fighting, 
her  fine  dare-devil  spirit,  were  sufficient  to  assure  her 
victory.  In  1870,  on  the  contrary,  we  were  crushed 
under  the  military  method  of  a  more  phlegmatic 
people,  less  brave  than  we  ;  we  were  overwhelmed  by 
an  army  maneuvered  by  logical  rules ;  we  were  dis- 
banded by  an  application  of  the  scientific  formula  to 
the  art  of  war,  without  speaking  of  a  more  powerful 
artillery  than  our  own,  of  a  better  equipped  army,  of 
a  better  disciplined  one,  and  a  more  intelligent  knowl- 
edge of  the  art  of  warfare.  Again,  I  repeat,  in  spite  of 
these  disasters,  from  which  we  are  still  suffering,  the 
true  patriotism  is  to  see  that  new  times  have  come 
upon  us,  and  to  accept  the  scientific  formula  instead  of 
dreaming  of  some  mythical  return  into  the  literary 
quagmires  of  the  ideal.  Scientific  principles  conquered 
us ;  let  us  employ  science  if  we  would  conquer  others. 
Great  commanders  using  sonorous  words  are  not  to  be 
regretted  if  it  so  happens  that  sonorous  words  cannot 
bring  about  victory. 

This  is  why  the  idealists  accuse  us  of  being  unpatri- 


loo  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

otic,  we  naturalists,  men  of  science.  It  is  because  we 
rhyme  no  odes,  neither  do  we  make  use  of  sonorous 
words.  The  romantic  school  has  reduced  patriotism 
to  a  simple  question  of  rhetoric.  To  be  patriotic  it  is 
sufficient  to  write  a  drama  or  literary  work  of  any  kind, 
bringing  in  the  work  patrie  -as  often  as  possible,  to 
wave  flags,  and  to  write  long  tirades  on  acts  of  courage. 
By  these  means  they  pretend  that  you  uplift  souls  and 
prepare  them  for  revenge.  It  is  always  the  same  old 
idea  of  music  which  produces  only  a  sensory  excite- 
ment to  fine  actions.  It  works  on  the  nervous  system  ; 
there  is  no  thought  of  appealing  to  the  intelligence,  to 
the  faculty  of  comprehension,  and  to  the  power  of 
practical  application.  The  role  which  these  theoretical 
patriots  fill  can  be  aptly  compared  to  a  military  band 
playing  martial  music  while  the  soldiers  are  fighting ; 
this  excites  them,  intoxicates  thern,  gives  them  more 
or  less  contempt  for  danger.  But  this  nervous  excite- 
ment has  but  a  momentary  and  relative  influence  on 
the  victory.  Victory  depends  more  and  more  in  our 
modern  days  upon  the  technical  genius  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief, upon  the  hand  which  applies  the 
scientific  formula  of  the  period  to  the  tactics  of 
war.  Look  at  the  history  of  all  great  generals.  Put 
your  youths  under  the  savants,  and  not  under  the 
poets,  if  you  would  have  strong,  vigorous  young  men. 
The  folly  of  lyricism  can  but  bring  forth  heroic  fools  ; 
and  what  we  want  are  soldiers  brave,  healthy  in  mind 
and  body,  marching  mathematically  to  victory.  Re- 
tain the  music  of  the  rhetoricians  ;  but  let  it  be  well 
understood  that  it  is  simply  music.  We  are  the  true 
patriots — we  who  wish  to  see  France  scientific,  rid  of 
lyrical  declamations,  strengthened  by  the  culture   of 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE.  pP  FRANdE\  'l6i 

truth,  applying  the  scientific  form uk 'hi  dl  Chhigs/in'' 
poHtics  as  in  Hterature,  in  social  economy  as  in  the  art 
of  war. 

And  now  let  us  consider  the  moral  side  of  the  ques- 
tion. I  have  already  demonstrated  that  honest  men 
would  not  receive  one  of  the  characters  who  play  so 
prominent  a  part  in  "  Ruy  Bias  "  in  their  salons.  They 
are  nothing  but  rogues  and  swindlers  and  adulterous 
women.  The  whole  romantic  repertoire  covers  itself 
with  filth  and  blood,  without  having  the  excuse  of 
being  able  to  draw  forth  any  true  data  from  its  exposed 
corpses.  The  morality  of  the  idealists  lives  in  the 
clouds  far  above  the  facts.  It  is  made  up  of  maxims 
which  it  attempts  to  apply  to  abstractions.  The  ideal 
is  the  common  standard  expressed  in  some  dogma 
about  virtue,  and  this  is  why  so  many  people  are  virtu- 
ous, as  they  are  Catholics  without  being  practical  ones. 
I  do  not  wish  to  be  personal ;  but  I  have  often  remarked 
that  the  greatest  rou^s  pretend  to  the  most  rigid  moral 
principles.  Behind  their  grand-sounding  words  what 
perverted  minds  !  Women  full  of  infatuation  for  the 
ideal,  affecting  the  utmost  refinements  of  delicacy,  and 
falling  at  each  step  into  the  pitfall  of  adultery.  Or  it 
is  the  poHticians  defending  family  ties  in  their  journals 
so  strenuously  as  not  to  admit  of  a  risky  word,  and 
yet  speculating  in  all  the  latest  financial  jobbery,  steal- 
ing from  some,  ruining  others,  giving  free  rein  to  their 
greed  for  fortune  and  ambition.  For  these  people  the 
ideal  is  a  veil  behind  which  any  crime  can  be  committed. 
When  the  curtain  is  drawn  before  the  ideal,  when  the 
candle  of  truth  is  blown  out,  they  are  sure  of  being  no 
longer  seen,  and  the  night  is  made  hideous  with  their 
revelries.     In  the  name  of  the  ideal  they  pretend  to 


ihi'*         'fd  TffE'¥OUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

■   '   .'  **^  ..'■*** '  '. 

/nipofefe'snenGe- oil  all  truth  which  confuses  them  ;  the 

ideal  becomes  a  sort  of  police,  a  prohibition  against 

touching  on  certain  subjects,  a  tie  which  shall  bind  the 

common  people  in  order  to  keep  them  good,  while  the 

wicked  ones  smile  in  a  skeptical  manner,  and  permit  to 

themselves  what  they  forbid  to  others.     One  feels  all 

the  misery  of  this  dogmatic  morality  which  beats  the 

bass  drum  so  loudly  in  the  rhetorical  outbursts  of  the 

poets,   and   which,  like   a   ballet   dancer,   is   furiously 

applauded   and   then  forgotten  as  soon  as  the  back  is 

turned.     It  is  but  a  breaking  out  on  the  skin,  a  grand 

wave  of  musical  honesty  which  they  listen  to  en  masse 

in  the  theater,  but  which  individually  interests  no  one. 

People  are  neither  better  nor  worse  after  coming  away ; 

they  take  up  their  vices  again,  and  the  world  goes  on 

in  its  same  old  way.     All  that  is  not  based  on  facts, 

all  that  is  not  demonstrated   by  experiment,  has  no 

practical  value. 

They   accuse  us  of   immorality,   we   writers   of  the 

naturalistic   school ;  and    they  are   right :  we  lack  the 

morality  of  mere  words.     Our  morality  is  what  Claude 

Bernard    has    so    precisely   defined :     "  The    modern 

morality  searches   out   the   causes,  desires  to  explain 

and  act  upon  them  ;  in  a  word,  to  master  the  good  and 

the  evil ;  to  bring  forth  the  one  and  develop  it ;  to 

battle   against   the    other,  extirpate   and   destroy  it." 

The   high   and   stern    philosophy   of   our   naturalistic 

works   is   admirably   summed    up   in   those  few  lines. 

We  are  looking  for  the  causes  of  social  evil ;  we  study 

the  anatomy  of  classes  and  individuals  to  explain  the 

derangements  which  are   produced  in  society  and  in 

man.     This  often  necessitates  our  working  on  tainted 

subjects,    our   descending    into   the   midst   of   human 


TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  103 

follies  and  miseries.  But  we  obtain  the  necessary  data 
so  that  by  knowing  them  one  may  be  able  to  master 
the  good  and  the  evil.  Lo  !  here  is  what  we  have  seen, 
observed,  and  explained  in  all  sincerity.  Now  it 
remains  for  the  legislators  to  bring  the  good  and 
develop  it ;  to  battle  against  the  bad,  to  extirpate  and 
destroy  it.  No  work  can  be  more  moralizing  than 
ours,  then,  because  it  is  upon  it  that  law  should  be 
based.  How  far  are  we  from  the  tirades  in  favor  of 
virtue  which  interests  no  one?  Our  virtue  does  not 
consist  of  words,  but  of  acts ;  we  are  the  active  laborers 
who  examine  the  building,  point  out  the  rotten  girders, 
the  interior  crevices,  the  loosened  stones,  all  the  rav- 
ages which  are  not  seen  from  the  outside,  and  which 
can  at  any  moment  undermine  the  entire  edifice.  Is 
not  this  a  work  more  truly  useful,  more  serious,  and 
more  worthy  than  that  of  placing  one's  self  on  a  rock, 
a  lyre  in  one's  hand,  and  striving  to  encourage  men 
by  a  hullabaloo  of  deep-sounding  words  ?  Ah !  what 
a  parallel  I  could .  draw  between  the  works  of  the 
romanticists  and  those  of  the  naturalists !  The  ideal 
is  the  root  of  all  dangerous  reveries.  The  moment 
that  you  leave  the  solid  ground  of  truth  you  are 
thrown  into  all  kinds  of  monstrosities.  Take  the 
novels  and  dramas  of  the  romantic  school ;  study  them 
from  this  point  of  view ;  you  will  find  there  the  most 
shameful  subtleties  of  the  debauch^,  the  most  stupefy- 
ing insanities  of  mind  and  body.  Without  doubt  these 
bad  places  are  magnificently  draped  ;  they  are  infamous 
alcoves  before  which  is  drawn  a  silken  curtain  ;  but  I 
maintain  that  these  veils,  these  hidden  infamies,  offer 
a  much  greater  peril,  in  so  much  that  the  reader  may 
dream  over  them  at  his  ease,  enlarge  upon  them,  and 


104  TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

abandon  himself  to  them  as  a  deHcious  and  permissible 
recreation.  With  the  naturalistic  writings  this  hypoc. 
risy  is  impossible.  These  works  may  frighten,  but  they 
do  not  corrupt.  Truth  misleads  no  one.  If  it  is  forbid- 
den to  children  it  is  the  prerogative  of  men,  and  who- 
ever makes  himself  familiar  with  it  derives  a  certain 
profit  therefrom.  All  this  is  a  simple  and  irrefutable 
matter  upon  which  all  the  world  should  agree.  They 
call  us  corrupters  ;  nothing  can  be  more  foolish.  The 
corrupters  are  the  idealists  who  lie. 

In  truth,  if  they  criticise  us  with  so  much  asperity 
it  is  because  we  derange  so  many  people  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  their  secret  sins.  It  is  hard  to  renounce  this 
ideal,  this  sensual  paradise,  the  windows  of  which  are 
hermetically  closed.  The  entrance  is  effected  by  a 
little  door,  and  you  find  yourself  in  the  midst  of  black 
chambers  lighted  by  candles.  We  demolish  this  wicked 
place,  and  they  are  angered.  Then  there  was  such  a 
clatter  in  the  big  words  of  the  rhetoricians,  so  pleasant 
a  shiver  in  the  lyricism  of  the  romantic  poets  !  Youth 
abandoned  itself  to  it  as  it  abandons  itself  to  easy 
pleasures.  To  take  up  science,  to  enter  into  the  austere 
laboratory  of  the  savant,  to  renounce  the  sweet  dreams 
for  terrible  truths,  caused  the  newly  escaped  collegians 
to  tremble.  They  wish  to  enjoy  their  years  of  attract- 
ive waywardness.  And  this  is  why  one  part  of  the 
youth  of  to-day  is  still  entangled  in  lyrical  bewilder- 
ments. But  the  movement  is  started,  the  scientific 
formula  is  imperative,  and  many  young  writers 
have  accepted  it  already.  It  is  to-morrow  for  which 
all  things  are  making  preparation.  The  children  born 
to-day  will  be,  they  must  not  forget,  the  men  of  the 
twentieth  century.     Let  the  idealistic  poet  sing  of  the 


TO  THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE.  105 

unknown,  if  they  but  leave  us,  the  naturalistic  writers, 
the  privilege  of  driving  back  this  unknown  as  much  as 
we  can.  I  do  not  push  my  reasonings,  as  do  certain^ 
positivists,  to  the  extent  of  predicting  the  approaching  \ 
end  of  poetry.  I  simply  assign  to  poetry  the  part  of  \ 
orchestra ;  the  poets  can  continue  to  make  sweet  music' 
for  us  while  we  work. 

It  now  remains  but  for  me  to  conclude.  I  will  finish 
by  telling  what  ought  to  be,  according  to  my  ideas, 
the  place  and  the  work  of  France  in  modern  Europe. 
We  reigned  for  a  long  time  over  all  nations.  Why 
is  it  that  to-day  our  influence  seems  to  be  on  the 
wane?  It  is  because,  after  the  thunderclap  of  our 
Revolution,  we  did  not  set  ourselves  to  the  hard  scien- 
tific labor  which  the  new  epoch  demanded.  We  cer- 
tainly have  in  our  race  the  genius  which  finds  and 
asserts  the  truth  through  a  sudden  inspiration.  Where 
we  lack  is  in  the  next  step,  in  patient  method  and  the 
carrying  out  of  the  law  that  has  been  energetically 
formulated  in  the  crisis.  We  are  capable  of  planting 
a  beacon  which  will  illuminate  the  whole  world,  and 
the  next  day  of  flying  off  into  poetry,  of  disburdening 
ourselves  of  lyrical  declarations,  of  ignoring  facts  so  as 
to  plunge  into  I  know  not  what  ideal.  This  is  why  we, 
who  should  be  at  the  summit,  after  the  seeds  of  truth, 
which  we  have  ceaselessly  brought  to  light,  find  our- 
selves at  this  moment  shorn  of  some  of  our  former 
power,  crushed  by  heavier  and  more  methodical  races. 
But  our  path  is  marked  out  for  us  if  we  would  reign 
once  more.  We  have  but  to  put  ourselves  resolutely 
under  the  schooling  of  science.  No  more  lyricism,  no 
more  empty  words,  but  facts  and  information.  The 
empire  of  the  world  will  belong  to  the  nation  who  pos- 


Io6  TO   THE   YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  FRANCE. 

sesses  most  strongly  the  power  of  clear  observation 
and  of  minute  analysis.  And  remember  that  all  the 
qualities  of  race  of  which  M.  Renan  speaks  can  be 
retained;  there  is  no  need  to  be  sullen,  lacking  in  wit 
and  gayety,  or  to  mar  our  conquests  by  pedantry  and 
military  formality;  we  shall  be  just  so  much  the 
stronger  as  we  use  science  in  our  warfare,  as  we  employ 
it  to  the  triumph  of  liberty,  keeping  at  the  same  time 
that  frankness  of  character  that  belongs  naturally  to  us. 
Young  men  of  France,  listen  to  me — this  is  patriotism  : 
It  is  by  the  use  of  the  scientific  formula  that  we  shall 
one  day  retake  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 


NATURALISM  ON  THE  STAGE. 


NATURALISM  ON  THE  STAGE. 


I. 


IN  the  first  place,  is  it  necessary  to  explain  what  I 
understand  by  *'  naturalism  "  ?  I  have  been  found 
fault  with  on  account  of  this  word  ;  some  pretend  to 
this  day  not  to  understand  what  I  mean  by  it.  It  is 
easy  to  cut  jokes  about  this  subject.  However,  I  will 
explain  it  again,  as  one  cannot  be  too  clear  in 
criticism. 

My  great  crime,  it  would  seem,  has  been  to  have 
invented  and  given  to  the  public  a  new  word  in  order 
to  designate  a  literary  school  as  old  as  the  world.  In 
the  first  place,  I  cannot  claim  the  invention  of  this 
word,  which  has  been  in  use  in  several  foreign  litera- 
tures ;  I  have  at  the  most  only  applied  it  to  the  actual 
evolution  in  our  own  literature.  Further,  naturaHsm, 
they  assure  us,  dates  from  the  first  written  works.  Who 
has  ever  said  to  the  contrary  ?  This  simply  proves  that  it 
comes  from  the  heart  of  humanity.  All  the  critics, 
they  add,  from  Aristotle  to  Boileau,  have  promulgated 
this  principle,  that  a  work  must  be  based  on  truth. 
All  this  delights  me  and  furnishes  me  with  new  argu- 
ments. The  naturalistic  school,  by  the  mouth  even 
of  those  who  deride  and  attack  it,  is  thus  built  on  an 
indestructible  foundation.     It  is  not  one  man's  caprice, 

109 


no  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

the  mad  folly  of  a  group  of  writers ;  it  is  born  in  the 
eternal  depth  of  things,  it  started  from  the  necessity 
which  each  writer  found  of  taking  nature  for  his  basis. 
Very  well,  so  far  we  are  agreed.  Let  us  start  from 
this  point. 

Well,  they  say  to  me,  why  all  this  noise  ?  why  do  you 
pose  as  an  innovator  and  revealer  of  new  doctrines  ? 
It  is  here  the  misunderstanding  commences.  I  am 
simply  an  observer,  who  states  facts.  The  empiricists 
alone  put  forth  invented  formulas.  The  savants  are 
content  to  advance  step  by  step,  relying  on  the  experi- 
mental method.  One  thing  is  certain,  I  have  no  new 
religion  in  my  pocket.  I  reveal  nothing,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  I  do  not  believe  in  revelation ;  I  invent 
nothing,  because  I  think  it  more  useful  to  obey  the 
impulses  of  humanity,  the  continuous  evolutions  which 
carry  us  along.  My  role  as  critic  consists  in  studying 
from  whence  we  come  and  our  present  state.  When  I 
venture  to  foretell  where  we  are  going  it  is  purely 
speculation  on  my  part,  a  purely  logical  conclusion. 
By  what  has  been,  and  by  what  is,  I  think  I  am  able 
to  say  what  will  be.  That  is  my  whole  endeavor.  It 
is  ridiculous  to  assign  me  any  other  role ;  to  place  me 
on  a  rock,  as  pope  and  prophet ;  to  represent  me  as 
the  head  of  a  school  and  on  familiar  terms  with  God. 

But  as  to  this  new  word,  this  terrible  word  of 
naturalism?  I  should  have  pleased  my  critics  better 
had  I  used  the  words  of  Aristotle.  He  spoke  of  the 
true  in  art,  and  that  ought  to  be  sufficient  for  me. 
Since  I  accept  the  eternal  basis  of  things  and  do  not 
seek  to  create  the  world  a  second  time,  I  no  longer 
have  need  of  a  new  term.  Truly,  are  they  mocking 
me  ?     Does  not  the  eternal  basis  of  things  take  upon 


NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE.  m 

itself  divers  forms,  according  to  the  times  and  the 
degree  of  civilization  ?  Is  it  possible  that  for  six  thou- 
sand years  each  race  has  not  interpreted  and  named, 
according  to  its  own  fashion,  the  things  coming  from  a 
common  source?  Homer  is  a  naturalistic  poet — I  admit 
that  at  once ;  but  our  romanticists  are  not  naturalists 
after  his  style ;  between  the  two  literary  epochs  there 
is  an  abyss.  This  is  to  judge  from  an  absolute  point 
of  view,  to  efface  all  history  at  one  stroke ;  it  is  to 
huddle  all  things  together  and  keep  no  account  of  the 
constant  evolution  of  the  human  mind.  One  thing  is 
certain,  that  any  piece  of  work  will  always  be  only  a 
corner  of  nature  as  seen  through  a  certain  tempera- 
ment. Only  we  cannot  be  content  with  this  truth  and 
go  no  further.  As  we  approach  the  history  of  litera- 
ture, we  must  necessarily  come  upon  strange  elements, 
upon  manners,  events,  and  intellectual  movements 
which  modify,  arrest,  or  precipitate  literatures.  My 
personal  opinion  is  that  naturalism  dates  from  the  first 
line  ever  written  by  man.  From  that  day  truth  was 
laid  down  as  the  necessary  foundation  of  all  art.  If 
we  look  upon  humanity  as  an  army  marching  through 
the  ages,  bent  upon  the  conquest  of  the  true,  in  spite 
of  every  form  of  wretchedness  and  infirmity,  we  must 
place  writers  and  savants  in  the  van.  It  is  from  this 
point  of  view  that  we  should  write  the  history  of  a 
universal  literature,  and  not  from  that  of  an  absolute 
ideal  or  a  common  aesthetical  measure,  which  is  per- 
fectly ridiculous.  But  it  must  be  understood  that  I 
cannot  go  as  far  back  as  that,  nor  undertake  so  colossal 
a  work ;  I  cannot  examine  the  marches  and  counter- 
marches of  the  writers  of  all  nations,  and  set  down 
through  what  darkness  and  what  lights  they  passed. 


112  NATURALISM  ON  THE   STAGE. 

I  must  set  myself  a  limit,  therefore  I  go  no  further 
back  than  the  last  century,  where  we  find  that  marvel- 
ous expansion  of  intelligence,  that  wonderful  move- 
ment from  whence  came  our  society  of  to-day.  And  it 
is  just  there  that  I  discover  a  triumphant  affirmation 
of  naturalism,  it  is  there  that  I  meet  with  the  word. 
The  long  thread  is  lost  in  the  darkness  of  the  ages ;  it 
answers  my  purpose  to  take  it  in  hand  at  the  eighteenth 
century  and  follow  it  to  our  day.  Putting  aside  Aris- 
totle and  Boileau,  a  particular  word  was  necessary  to 
designate  an  evolution  which  evidently  starts  from  the 
first  days  of  the  world,  but  which  finally  arrives  at  a 
decisive  development  in  the  midst  of  circumstances 
especially  favorable  to  it. 

Let  us  start,  then,  at  the  eighteenth  century.  We  have 
at  that  period  a  superb  outburst.  One  fact  dominates 
all,  the  creation  of  a  method.  Until  then  the  savants 
had  worked  as  the  poets  did,  from  individual  fantasy, 
by  strokes  of  genius.  A  few  discovered  truths,  but 
they  were  scattered  truths ;  no  tie  held  them  together, 
and  mixed  with  them  were  the  grossest  errors.  They 
wished  to  create  science  at  one  bound  the  way  you 
write  a  poem ;  they  joined  it  on  to  nature  by  quack 
formulas,  by  metaphysical  considerations  which  would 
astound  us  to-day.  All  at  once  a  little  circumstance 
revolutionized  this  sterile  field  in  which  nothing  grew. 
One  day  a  savant  proposed,  before  concluding,  to  ex- 
periment. He  abandoned  supposed  truths,  he  returned 
to  first  causes,  to  the  study  of  bodies,  the  observation 
of  facts.  Like  a  schoolboy  he  consented  to  become 
humble,  to  learn  to  spell  nature  before  reading  it 
fluently.  It  was  a  revolution :  science  detached  itself 
Jrom  empiricism,  its   method    consisted    in   marching 


NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE.  I13 

from  the  known  to  the  unknown.  They  started  from 
an  observed  fact,  they  advanced  from  observation  to 
observation,  hesitating  to  conclude  before  being  in 
possession  of  the  necessary  elements.  In  one  word, 
instead  of  setting  out  with  synthesis,  they  commenced 
with  analysis ;  they  no  longer  tried  to  draw  the  truth 
from  nature  by  means  of  divination  or  revelation ;  they 
studied  it  long  and  patiently,  passing  from  the  simple 
to  the  complex,  until  they  were  acquainted  with  its 
mechanism.  The  tool  was  found  ;  such  a  way  of  work- 
ing was  to  consolidate  and  extend  all  the  sciences. 

Indeed,  the  benefit  was  soon  apparent.  The  natural 
sciences  were  established,  thanks  to  the  minute  and 
thorough  exactitude  of  observation  ;  in  anatomy  alone 
an  entirely  new  world  was  opened  up ;  each  day  it 
revealed  a  little  more  of  the  secret  of  life.  Other 
sciences  were  created — chemistry  and  natural  phil- 
osophy. To-day  they  are  still  young,  but  they  are 
growing,  and  they  are  bringing  truth  to  Hght  in  a 
manner  harassing  from  its  rapidity.  I  cannot  examine 
each  science  thus.  It  is  sufficient  to  name  in  addition 
cosmography  and  geology,  two  sciences  which  have 
dealt  so  terrible  a  blow  to  religious  fables.  The  out- 
burst was  general,  and  it  continues. 

But  everything  holds  together  in  civilization.  When 
one  side  of  the  human  mind  is  set  working  other  parts 
are  affected,  and  ere  long  you  have  a  complete  evolu- 
tion. The  sciences,  which  until  then  had  borrowed 
their  share  of  imagination  from  letters,  were  the  first 
to  cut  free  from  fantastic  dreams  and  return  to  nature ; 
next  letters  were  seen  in  their  turn  to  follow  the 
sciences,  and  to  adopt  also  the  experimental  method. 
The  great  philosophical  movement  of  the  eighteenth 


114  NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE. 

century  was  a  vast  inquiry,  often  hesitating,  it  is  true, 
but  which  ended  by  bringing  into  question  again  all 
human  problems  and  offering  new  solutions  of  them. 
In  history,  in  criticism,  the  study  of  facts  and  sur- 
roundings replaces  the  old  scholastic  rules.  In  the 
purely  literary  works  nature  intervenes  and  reigns 
with  Rousseau  and  his  school ;  the  trees,  the  waters, 
the  mountains,  the  great  forests,  obtain  recognition  and 
take  once  more  their  place  in  the  mechanism  of  the 
world ;  man  is  no  longer  an  intellectual  abstraction ; 
nature  determines  and  completes  him.  Diderot  remains 
beyond  question  the  grand  figure  of  the  century ;  he 
foresees  all  the  truths,  he  is  in  advance  of  his  time, 
waging  a  continual  war  against  the  worm-eaten  edifice 
of  conventions  and  rules.  Magnificent  outburst  of  an 
epoch,  colossal  labor  from  which  our  society  has  come 
forth,  new  era  from  which  will  date  the  centuries  into 
which  humanity  is  entering,  with  nature  for  a  basis, 
method  for  a  tool ! 

This  is  the  evolution  which  I  have  called  naturalism, 
and  I  contend  that  you  can  use  no  better  word.    Natu- 
ralism, that  is,  a  return  to  nature ;  it  is  this  operation 
which  the  savants  performed  on  the  day  when  they 
decided  to  set  out  from  the  study  of  bodies  and  phe- 
nomena, to  build  on  experiment,  and  to  proceed  by 
#—  analysis.     Naturalism  in  letters  is  equally  the  return  to 
I    nature  and  to  man,  direct  observation,  exact  anatomy, 
I    the  acceptance  and  depicting  of  what  is.     The  task  was 
Jf     the  same  for  the  writer  as  for  the  savant.     One  and  the 
other   replaced  abstractions  by  realities,  empirical  for- 
i      mulas  by  rigorous  analysis.     Thus,  no  more  abstract 
characters  in  books,  no  more  lying  inventions,  no  more 
of  the  absolute  ;  but  real  characters,  the  true  history 


NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE.  115 

of  each  one,  the  story  of  daily  life.  It  was  a  question 
of  commencing  all  over  again  ;  of  knowing  man  down 
to  the  sources  of  his  being  before  coming  to  such  con- 
clusions as  the  idealists  reached,  who  invented  types  of 
character  out  of  the  whole  cloth  ;  and  writers  had  only 
to  start  the  edifice  at  the  foundation,  bringing  together 
the  greatest  number  of  human  data  arranged  in  their 
logical  order.  This  is  naturalism  ;  starting  in  the  first 
thinking  brain,  if  you  wish  ;  but  whose  greatest  evolu- 
tion, the  definite  evolution,  without  doubt  took  place 
in  the  last  century. 

So  great  an  evolution  in  the  human  mind  could  not 
take  place  without  bringing  on  a  social  overthrow. 
The  French  Revolution  was  this  overthrow,  this  tem- 
pest which  was  to  wipe  out  the  old  world,  to  give  place 
to  the  new.  We  are  the  beginning  of  this  new  world, 
we  are  the  direct  children  of  naturalism  in  all  things, 
in  politics  as  in  philosophy,  in  science  as  in  literature 
and  in  art.  I  extend  the  bounds  of  this  word  natural- 
ism because  in  reality  it  includes  the  entire  century, 
the  movement  of  contemporaneous  intelligence,  the 
force  which  is  sweeping  us  onward,  and  which  is  work- 
ing toward  the  molding  of  future  centuries.  The  his- 
tory of  these  last  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  proves 
it,  and  one  of  the  most  typical  phenomena  is  the 
momentary  rebound  of  the  minds  which  succeeded  to 
Rousseau  and  Chateaubriand ;  that  singular  outburst 
of  romanticism  on  the  very  threshold  of  a  scientific  age. 
I  will  stop  here  for  an  instant,  for  there  are  some  very 
important  observations  to  make  on  this  subject. 

It  is  rarely  the  case  that  a  revolution  breaks  out 
calmly  and  sensibly.  Brains  become  deranged,  imag- 
inations become  frightened,  gloomy,  and  peopled  wit!) 


ti6  NATURALISM  ON  THE   STAGE. 

phantoms.  After  the  rude  shocks  of  the  last  century, 
and  under  the  tender  and  restless  influence  of  Rous- 
seau, we  find  poets  adopting  a  melancholy  and  fatal 
style.  They  know  not  where  they  are  going.  They 
throw  themselves  into  bitterness,  into  contemplation, 
into  the  most  extraordinary  dreams.  However,  they 
also  have  been  breathed  upon  by  the  spirit  of  the  Rev- 
olution. They  also  are  rebels.  They  bring  about  a 
rebellion  of  color,  of  passion,  of  fantasy;  they  talk  of 
breaking  outright  with  rules,  and  they  renew  the  lan- 
guage by  a  burst  of  lyrical  poetry,  sparkling  and 
superb.  Moreover,  truth  has  touched  them,  they  exact 
local  coloring,  they  believe  in  resurrecting  the  dead 
ages.  This  is  romanticism.  It  is  a  violent  reaction 
against  classical  literature,  it  is  the  first  revolutionary 
use  which  the  writers  make  of  the  reconquered  literary 
liberty.  They  smash  windows,  they  become  intoxi- 
cated ;  maddened  with  their  cries  they  rush  into  every 
extreme  from  the  mere  necessity  of  protesting.  The 
movement  is  so  irresistible  that  it  carries  everything 
with  it,  not  only  the  flamboyant  literature,  but  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  music,  even  ;  they  all  become  romantic  ; 
romanticism  triumphs  and  stamps  itself  everywhere. 
For  one  moment,  in  view  of  so  powerful  and  so  general 
a  manifestation,  one  could  almost  believe  that  this 
literary  and  artistic  formula  had  come  to  remain  for  a 
long  time.  The  classical  style  had  lasted  at  least  two 
centuries ;  why  should  not  the  romantic  style,  which 
had  taken  its  place,  remain  an  equal  length  of  time  ? 
And  people  were  surprised  when,  at  the  end  of  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century,  they  found  romanticism  in  its  last 
agony,  slowly  dying  a  beautiful  death.  Then  truth 
came  forth  into  the  light.     The  romantic  movement 


NATURALISM  ON    THE   STAGE.  117 

was  without  question  but  a  skirmish.  Poets,  novelists 
of  great  talents,  a  whole  generation  full  of  magnificent 
enthusiasm  had  been  able  to  start  a  wrong  scent.  But 
the  century  did  not  belong  to  these  overexcited 
dreamers,  to  these  children  of  the  dawn,  blinded  by  the 
light  of  the  rising  sun.  They  represented  nothing 
definite  ;  they  were  but  the  advance  guard,  charged 
with  clearing  away  the  debris,  and  insuring  the  future 
conquest  by  their  excesses.  The  century  belongs  to 
the  naturalists,  to  the  direct  sons  of  Diderot,  whose  soHd 
battalions  followed,  and  who  will  finally  found  a  true 
state.  The  ends  of  the  chain  came  together  once 
more ;  naturalism  triumphed  with  Balzac.  After  the 
violent  catastrophes  of  its  infancy,  the  century  at  last 
took  the  broad  path  marked  out  for  it.  This  romantic 
crisis  was  bound  to  be  produced,  because  it  corre- 
sponded to  the  social  catastrophe  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution in  the  same  manner  that  I  willingly  compare 
triumphant  naturalism  to  our  actual  republic,  which 
bids  fair  to  be  founded  by  science  and  reason. 

This  is  where  we  stand  to-day.  Romanticism,  which 
corresponded  to  nothing  durable,  which  was  simply  the 
restless  regret  of  the  old  world  and  the  bugle  call  to 
battle,  gave  away  before  naturalism,  which  rose  up 
stronger  and  more  powerful,  leading  the  century  of 
which  it  is  in  reality  the  breath.  Is  it  necessary  to 
exhibit  it  everywhere?  It  arises  from  the  earth  on 
which  we  walk  ;  it  grows  every  hour,  penetrates  and 
animates  all  things.  It  is  the  strength  of  our  produc- 
tions, the  pivot  upon  which  our  society  turns.  It  is 
found  in  the  sciences,  which  continued  on  their  tran- 
quil way  during  the  folly  of  romanticism  ;  it  is  found 
in  all  the  manifestations  of  human  intelligence,  disen- 


Il8  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

gaging  itself  more  and  more  from  the  influences  of 
romanticism  which  once  for  a  moment  seemed  to  have 
submerged  it.  It  renews  the  arts,  sculpture,  and, 
above  all,  painting;  it  extends  the  field  of  criticism  and 
history  ;  it  makes  itself  felt  in  the  novel ;  and  it  is  by 
means  of  the  novel,  by  means  of  Balzac  and  Stendhal, 
that  it  lifts  itself  above  romanticism,  thus  visibly 
relinking  the  chain  with  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
novel  is  its  domain,  its  field  of  battle  and  of  victory.  It 
seems  to  have  chosen  the  novel  in  order  to  demonstrate 
the  power  of  its  method,  the  glory  of  the  truth,  the 
inexhaustible  novelty  of  human  data.  To-day  it  takes 
possession  of  the  stage,  it  has  commenced  to  transform 
the  theater,  which  is  the  last  fortress  of  conventionality. 
When  it  shall  triumph  there  its  evolution  will  be  com- 
plete ;  the  classical  formulas  will  find  themselves  defi- 
nitely and  solidly  replaced  by  the  naturalistic  formula, 
which  should  by  right  be  the  formula  of  the  new  social 
condition. 

It  seemed  to  me  necessary  to  insist  upon  and  to 
explain  at  length  the  meaning  of  this  word  naturalism, 
as  a  great  many  pretend  not  to  understand  me.  But  I 
will  drop  the  question  now ;  I  simply  wish  to  study 
the  naturalistic  movement  on  the  stage.  But  I  must  at 
the  same  time  speak  of  the  contemporaneous  novel,  for 
a  point  of  comparison  is  indispensable  to  me.  We  will 
see  where  the  novel  stands  and  where  the  stage  stands. 
The  conclusion  will  thus  be  easier  to  reach. 


II. 

I  HAVE  often  talked  with  foreign  writers,  and  I  have 
found  the  same  astonishment  expressed  by  them 
all.  They  are  better  able  than  we  are  to  judge  of  the 
drift  of  our  literature,  for  they  see  us  from  a  distance, 
and  they  are  outside  and  away  from  our  daily  quarrels. 
They  express  great  astonishment  that  there  are  two 
distinct  literatures  with  us,  cut  adrift  from  each  other 
completely :  the  novel  and  the  stage.  No  parallel 
exists  among  our  neighbors.  In  France  it  seems  that 
for  half  a  century  literature  has  been  divided  in  two ; 
the  novel  has  passed  to  one  side,  the  stage  remains  on 
the  other;  and  between  is  dug  a  deeper  and  deeper 
ditch.  Let  us  examine  this  situation  for  a  moment ;  it 
is  very  curious  and  very  instructive.  Our  current  crit- 
icism— I  speak  of  newspaper  critics,  whose  hard  task  is 
to  judge  from  day  to  day  new  pieces — our  criticism 
lays  down  the  principle  that  there  is  nothing  in  com- 
mon between  a  novel  and  a  dramatic  work,  neither  the 
frame  nor  the  development ;  it  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
say  that  there  are  two  distinct  styles,  the  theatrical 
style  and  the  novelist's  style,  and  a  subject  which  could 
be  put  in  a  book  could  not  be  placed  upon  the  stage. 
Why  not  say  at  once,  as  strangers  do,  that  we  have  two 
literatures  ?  It  is  but  too  true  ;  such  criticism  has  but 
stated  a  fact.  It  only  remains  to  be  seen  if  it  does  not 
aid  in  the  detestable  task  of  transforming  this  fact  into 
a  law  by  saying  that  this  is  so,  because  it  cannot  be 

119 


I20  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

otherwise.  Our  continual  tendency  is  to  draw  up 
rules  and  codify  everything.  The  worst  of  it  is  that, 
after  we  have  bound  ourselves  hand  and  foot  with 
rules  and  conventions,  we  have  to  use  superhuman 
efforts  to  break  the  fetters. 

In  fact,  we  have  two  literatures  entirely  dissimilar  in 
all  things.  Once  a  novelist  wishes  to  write  for  the 
stage  they  mistrust  him ;  they  shrug  their  shoulders. 
Did  not  Balzac  strand  himself?  It  is  true  that  M. 
Octave  Feuillet  has  succeeded.  I  am  going  to  take 
up  this  question  at  the  beginning  in  order  to  solve  it 
logically.  But  first  let  us  study  the  contemporaneous 
novel. 

Victor  Hugo  wrote  poems,  even  when  he  descended 
to  prose ;  Alexander  Dumas,  pere,  was  but  a  prolific 
story-teller;  George  Sand  gave  us  the  dreams  of  her 
imagination  in  an  easy  and  happy  flow  of  language.  I 
will  not  go  back  to  those  writers  who  belong  to  that 
superb  outburst  of  romanticism,  and  who  have  left  us 
no  direct  descendants.  I  mean  to  say  that  their  influ- 
ence is  felt  to-day  only  by  our  rebound  from  it,  and  in 
a  manner  of  which  I  will  speak  later.  The  sources  of 
our  contemporaneous  novel  are  found  in  Balzac  and  in 
Stendhal.  We  must  look  for  them  and  consult  them 
there.  Both  escaped  from  the  craze  of  romanticism  : 
Balzac  because  he  could  not  help  himself ;  and  Stend- 
hal from  his  superiority  as  a  man.  While  the  whole 
world  was  proclaiming  the  triumphs  of  the  lyrics,  while 
Victor  Hugo  was  noisily  crowned  king  of  literature, 
both  died  almost  in  obscurity,  in  the  midst  of  the 
neglect  and  disdain  of  the  public.  But  they  left  behind 
them  in  their  works  the  naturalistic  formula  of  the 
century ;  and  the  future  was  to  show  their  descendants 


NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE.  12 1 

pressing  to  their  tombs,  while  the  romantic  school  was 
dying  from  bloodlessness,  and  survived  only  in  one 
illustrious  old  man,  respect  for  whom  prevented  the 
telling  of  the  truth.  This  is  but  a  rapid  review.  There 
is  no  need  of  explaining  the  new  formula  which  Balzac 
and  Stendhal  introduced.  They  made  the  inquiry  with 
the  novel  that  the  savants  made  with  science.  They 
no  longer  imagined  nor  told  pretty  stories.  Their  task 
was  to  take  man  and  dissect  him,  to  analyze  him  in  his 
flesh  and  in  his  brain.  Stendhal  remained  above  all 
else  a  psychologist.  Balzac  studied  more  particularly 
the  temperaments,  reconstructed  the  surroundings, 
gathered  together  human  data,  and  assumed  the  title 
of  doctor  of  social  sciences.  Compare  "  Pere  Goriot  " 
or  "  Cousine  Bette  "  to  preceding  novels,  to  those  of 
the  seventeenth  century  as  to  those  of  the  eighteenth, 
and  you  will  better  understand  what  the  naturalistic 
evolution  accomplished.  The  name  "  romance  "  alone 
has  been  kept,  which  is  wrong,  for  it  has  lost  all  sig- 
nificance. 

I  must  now  choose  among  the  descendants  of  Balzac 
and  Stendhal.  First,  there  is  M.  Gustave  Flaubert, 
and  it  is  he  who  will  complete  the  actual  formula.  We 
shall,  see  in  him  the  reaction  from  the  romantic  influ- 
ence of  which  I  have  spoken  to  you.  One  of  Balzac's 
most  bitter  disappointments  was  that  he  did  not  pos- 
sess Victor  Hugo's  brilliant  form.  He  was  accused  of 
writing  badly,  and  that  made  him  very  unhappy.  He 
sometimes  tried  to  compete  with  the  ringing  lyrics,  as 
for  instance  when  he  wrote  "  La  Femme  de  Trente 
Ans,"  and  "  Le  Lis  dans  la  Vallee  "  ;  but  in  this  he  did 
not  succeed  ;  this  great  writer  never  wrote  better  prose 
than  when  he  kept  his  own  strong  and  fluent  style.    In 


122  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE, 

passing  to  M.  Gustave  Flaubert  the  naturalistic  formula 
was  given  into  the  hands  of  a  perfect  artist.  It  was 
solidified,  and  became  hard  and  shining  as  marble.  M. 
Gustave  Flaubert  had  grown  up  in  the  midst  of  romanti- 
cism. All  his  leanings  were  toward  the  movement  of 
1830.  When  he  published  "Mme.  Bovary"  it  was  as 
a  defiance  to  the  realism  of  that  time,  which  prided 
itself  on  writing  badly.  He  intended  to  prove  that  you 
could  talk  of  the  little  provincial  bourgeoisie  with  the 
same  ampleness  and  power  which  Homer  has  employed 
in  speaking  of  the  Greek  heroes.  But  happily  the 
work  had  another  result.  Whether  M.  Gustave  Flau- 
bert intended  it  or  not,  he  had  brought  to  natuj-alism 
the  only  strength  which  was  lacking  to  it,  that  of  that 
perfect  and  imperishable  style  which  keeps  works  alive. 
From  that  time  the  formula  was  firmly  established. 
There  was  nothing  for  the  newcomers  to  do  but  to 
walk  in  this  broad  path  of  truth  aided  by  art.  The 
noveHsts  went  on  and  continued  M.  Balzac's  inquiry, 
advancing  more  and  more  in  the  analysis  of  man  as 
affected  by  the  action  of  his  surroundings ;  only  they 
were  at  the  same  time  artists,  they  had  the  originality 
and  the  science  of  form,  they  seemed  to  have  raised 
truth  from  the  dead  by  the  intense  life  of  their  style. 
At  the  same  time  as  M.  Gustave  Flaubert,  MM. 
Edmond  and  Jules  de  Goncourt  were  laboring  also  for 
this  brilliancy  of  form.  They  did  not  come  from  the 
romantic  school.  They  possessed  no  Latin,  no  classical 
aids;  they  invented  their  own  language;  they  jotted 
down,  with  an  incredible  intensity,  their  feelings  as 
artists  weary  of  their  art.  In  "  Germinie  Lacert^aux  " 
they  were  the  first  to  study  the  people  of  Paris,  paint- 
ing   the    faubourgs,   the   desolate   landscapes   of   the 


NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE.  123 

suburbs,  daring  to  tell  everything  in  a  refined  lan- 
guage which  gave  beings  and  things  their  proper  life. 
They  had  a  great  influence  over  the  groups  of  natural- 
istic novelists.  If  we  found  our  solidity,  our  exact 
method,  in  M.  Gustave  Flaubert,  we  must  add  that  we 
were  very  much  stirred  by  this  new  language  of  the 
MM.  Goncourt :  as  penetrating  as  a  symphony,  giving 
that  nervous  shiver  of  our  age  to  all  objects,  going 
further  than  the  written  phrase,  and  adding  to  the 
words  of  the  dictionary  a  color,  a  sound,  and  a  subtle 
perfume.  I  do  not  judge,  I  but  state  my  facts.  My 
only  end  is  to  establish  the  source  of  the  contemporane- 
ous novel,  and  to  explain  what  it  is  and  why  it  is. 

These,  then,  are  the  sources  clearly  indicated.  First, 
Balzac  and  Stendhal,  a  physiologist  and  a  psychologist, 
weaned  from  the  rhetoric  of  romanticism,  which  was 
nothing  but  an  uprising  of  word-lovers.  Then,  between 
us  and  these  two  ancestors,  we  find  M.  Gustave  Flau- 
bert on  one  side,  and  MM.  Edmond  and  Jules  de  Gon- 
court on  the  other,  giving  us  the  science  of  style, 
fixing  the  formula  in  new  modes  of  expression.  In 
these  names  you  have  the  naturalistic  novel.  I  will 
not  speak  of  its  actual  representatives.  It  will  suffice 
to  indicate  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  this  novel. 

I  have  said  that  the_naturalistic  novel  is  simply  an 
inquiry  into  nature,  beings,  and  things.  It  no  longer 
interests  itself  in  the  ingenuity  of  a  well-invented 
story,  developed  according  to  certain  rules.  Imagina- 
tion has  no  longer  place,  plot  matters  little  to  the 
novelist,  whobothers  himself  with  neither  development, 
mystery,  nor  denouement ;  I  mean  that  he  does  not 
intervene  to  take  away  from  or  add  to  reality;  he  does 
not   construct   a   framework  out  of   the  whole   cloth. 


124  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

according  to  the  needs  of  a  preconceived  idea.  You 
start  from  the  point  that  nature  is  sufficient,  that  you 
must  accept  it  as  it  is,  without  modification  or  pruning  ; 
it  is  grand  enough,  beautiful  enough  to  supply  its  own 
beginning,  its  middle,  and  its  end.  Instead  of  imagin- 
ing an  adventure,  of  complicating  it,  of  arranging  stage 
effects,  which  scene  by  scene  will  lead  to  a  final  con- 
clusion, you  simply  take  the  life  study  of  a  person  or  a 

\   group  of  persons,  whose  actions  you  faithfully  depict. 

I  The  work  becomes  a  report,  nothing  more ;  it  has  but 
the  merit  of  exact  observation,  of  more  or  less  profound 
penetration  and  analysis,  of  the  logical  connection  of 
facts.  Sometimes,  even,  it  is  not  an  entire  life,  with 
a  commencement  and  an  ending,  of  which  you  tell ;  it 
is  only  a  scrap  of  an  existence,  a  few  years  in  the  life 
of  a  man  or  a  woman,  a  single  page  in  a  human  history, 
which  has  attracted  the  novelist  in  the  same  way  that 
the  special  study  of  a  mineral  can  attract  a  chemist.  The 
novel  is  no  longer  confined  to  one  special  sphere ;  it 
has  invaded  and  taken  possession  of  all  spheres.  Like 
science,  it  is  the  master  of  the  world.  It  touches  on  all 
subjects:  writes  history;  treats  of  physiology  and 
psychology ;  rises  to  the  highest  flights  of  poetry  ; 
studies  the  most  diverse  subjects — politics,  social 
economy,  religion,  and  manners.  Entire  nature  is  its 
domain.  It  adopts  the  form  which  pleases  it,  taking 
the  tone  which  seems  best,  feeling  no  longer  bounded 
by  any  limit.  In  this  we  are  far  distant  from  the  novel 
that  our  fathers  were  acquainted  with.  It  was  a 
purely  imaginative  work,  whose  sole  end  was  to  charm 
and  distract  its  readers.  In  ancient  rhetorics  the 
novel  is  placed  at  the  bottom,  between  the  fables  and 
light  poetry.     Serious  men  disdained  novels,  abandoned 


NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE.  125 

them  to  women,  as  a  frivolous  and  compromising  recre- 
ation. This  opinion  is  still  held  in  the  country  and 
certain  academical  centers.  The  truth  is  that  the 
masterpieces  of  modern  fiction  say  more  on  the  subject 
of  man  and  nature  than  do  the  graver  works  of  phil- 
osophy, history,  and  criticism.  In  them  lies  the 
modern  tool. 

I  pass  to  another  characteristic  of  the  naturalistic 
novel.  It  is  impersonal ;  I  mean  to  say  by  that  that 
the  novelist  is  but  a  recorder  who  is  forbidden  to  judge 
^d  to  conclude.  The  strict  role  of  a  savant  is  to 
expose  the  facts,  to  go  to  the  endTof  analysis  without 
Venturing  into  synthesis ;  the  facts  are  thus :  experi- 
— ment  tried  in  such  and  such  conditions  gives  such  and 
such  results ;  and  he  stops  there,  for  if  he  wishes  to  go 
beyond  the  phenomena  he  will  enter  into  hypothesis ; 
we  shall  have  probabilities,  not  science.  Well !  the 
novelist  should  equally  keep  to  known  facts,  to  the 
Scrupulous  study  of  nature,  if  he  does  not  wish  to  stray 
among  lying  conclusions.  He  himself  disappears,  he 
keeps  his  emotion  well  in  hand,  he  simply  shows  what 
he  has  seen.  Here  is  the  truth ;  shiver  or  laugh 
before  it,  draw  from  it  whatever  lesson  you  please,  the 
only  task  of  the  author  has  been  to  put  before  you 
true  data.  There  is,  besides,  for  this  moral  impersonal- 
ity of  the  work  a  reason  in  art.  The  passionate  or 
tender  intervention  of  the  writer  weakens  a  novel,  be- 
cause it  ruins  the  clearness  of  its  lines,  and  introduces 
a  strange  element  into  the  facts  which  destroys  their 
scientific  value.  One  cannot  well  imagine  a  chemist 
becoming  incensed  with  azote,  because  this  body  is 
injurious  to  life,  or  sympathizing  with  oxygen  for  the 
contrary  reason.     In  the   same  way,  a  novelist  who 


126  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

feels  the  need  of  becoming  indignant  with  vice,  or 
applauding  virtue,  not  only  spoils  the  data  he  pro- 
duces, for  his  intervention  is  as  trying  as  it  is  useless, 
but  the  work  loses  its  strength ;  it  is  no  longer  a 
marble  page,  hewn  from  the  block  of  reality ;  it  is 
matter  worked  up,  kneaded  by  the  emotions  of  the 
author,  and  such  emotions  are  always  subject  to  preju- 
dices and  errors.  A  true  work  will  be  eternal,  while 
an  impressionable  work  can  at  best  tickle  only  the 
sentiment  of  a  certain  age. 

Thus  the  naturalistic  novelist  never  interferes,  any 
more  than  the  savant.  This  moral  impersonality  of 
a  work  is  all-important,  for  it  raises  the  question  of 
morality  in  a  novel.  They  reproach  us  for  being 
immoral,  because  we  put  rogues  and  honest  men  in  our 
books,  and  are  as  impartial  to  one  as  to  the  other. 
This  is  the  whole  quarrel.  Rogues  are  permissible, 
but  they  must  be  punished  in  the  wind-up,  or  at  least 
we  must  crush  them  under  our  anger  and  contempt. 
As  to  the  honest  men,  they  deserve  here  and  there  a 
few  words  of  praise  and  encouragement.  Our  impassa- 
bility,  our  tranquillity  in  our  analysis  in  the  face  of  the 
good  and  bad,  is  altogether  wrong.  And  they  end  by 
saying  that  we  lie  when  we  are  most  true.  What ! 
nothing  but  rogues,  not  one  attractive  character?  This 
is  where  the  theory  of  attractive  characters  comes  in. 
There  must  be  attractive  characters  in  order  to  give  a 
kindly  touch  to  nature.  They  not  only  demand  that 
we  should  have  a  preference  for  virtue,  but  they  exact 
that  we  should  embellish  virtue  and  make  it  lovable.' 
Thus,  in  a  character,  we  ought  to  make  a  selection, 
take  the  good  sentiments  and  pass  the  wicked  by 
in  silence  ;  indeed,  we  would  be  more  commendable  still 


NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE.  1 27 

if  we  invented  a  person  out  of  the  whole  cloth ;  if  we 
would  mold  one  on  the  conventional  form  demanded  by- 
propriety  and  good  manners.  For  this  purpose  there 
are  ready-made  types  which  writers  introduce  into  a 
story  without  any  trouble.  These  are  attractive  char- 
acters, ideal  conceptions  of  men  and  women,  destined  to 
compensate  for  the  sorry  impression  of  true  characters 
taken  from  nature.  As  you  can  see,  our  only  mistake 
in  all  this  is  that  we  accept  only  nature,  and  that  we 
are  not  willing  to  correct  what  is  by  what  should  be. 
Absolute  honesty  no  more  exists  than  perfect  healthful- 
ness.  There  is  a  tinge  of  the  human  beast  in  all  of  us, 
as  there  is  a  tinge  of  illness.  These  young  girls  so 
pure,  these  young  men  so  loyal,  represented  to  us  in 
certain  novels,  do  not  belong  to  earth ;  to  make  them 
mortal  everything  must  be  told.  We  tell  everything, 
we  do  not  make  a  choice,  neither  do  we  idealize ;  and 
this  is  why  they  accuse  us  of  taking  pleasure  in 
obscenity.  To  sum  up,  the  question  of  morality  in 
novels  reduces  itself  to  two  opinions :  the  idealists  pre- 
tend that  it  is  necessary  to  lie  to  be  moral ;  the  natur- 
alists affirm  that  there  is  no  morality  outside  of  the 
truth.  Moreover,  nothing  is  so  dangerous  as  a  romantic 
novel ;  such  a  work,  in  painting  the  world  under  false 
colors,  confuses  the  imagination,  throws  us  in  the  midst 
of  hair-breadth  escapes;  and  I  do  not  speak  of  the 
hypocrisies  of  fashionable  society,  the  abominations 
which  are  hidden  junder  a  bed  of  flowers.  With  us  these 
perils  disappear.  We  teach  the  bitter  science  of  life,"^ 
we  give  the  high  lesson  of  reality.  Here  is  what  exists  ; ' 
endeavor  to  repair  it.  We  are  but  savants,  analyzers, 
anatomists;  and  our  works  have  the  certainty,  the 
solidity,    and   the   practical   applications    of    scientific 


128  NATURALISM  ON  THE  STAGE. 

works.     I  know  of   no  school   more   moral   or   more 
austere. 

Such  to-day  is  the  naturalistic  novel.  It  has  tri- 
umphed ;  all  the  novelists  accept  it,  even  those  who 
attempted  at  first  to  crush  it  in  the  ^^'g.  It  is  the 
same  old  story ;  they  deride,  and  then  they  praise  and 
finally  imitate  it.  Success  is  sufficient  to  turn  the 
source  of  the  current.  Besides,  now  that  the  impetus 
has  been  given,  we  shall  see  the  movement  spreading 
more  and  more.  A  new  literary  century  is  beginning 
for  us. 


III. 

1PASS  now  to  our  contemporaneous  stage.  We 
have  just  seen  to  what  place  the  novel  has  risen  ;  we 
must  now  endeavor  to  define  the  present  position  of 
dramatic  literature.  But  before  entering  upon  it  I 
will  rapidly  recall  to  the  reader's  mind  the  great  evo- 
lutions of  the  stage  in  France. 

In  the  beginning  we  find  unformed  pieces,  dialogues 
for  two  characters,  or  for  three  at  the  most,  which  were 
given  in  the  public  square.  Then  halls  were  built, 
tragedy  and  comedy  were  born,  under  the  influence  of 
the  classical  renaissance.  Great  geniuses  consecrated 
this  movement  —  Corneille,  Moli^re,  Racine.  They 
were  the  product  of  the  age  in  which  they  lived.  The 
tragedy  and  comedy  of  that  time,  with  their  unalter- 
able rules,  their  etiquette  of  the  court,  their  grand  and 
noble  air,  their  philosophical  dissertations  and  oratori- 
cal eloquence  are  the  exact  reproduction  of  contempo- 
raneous society.  And  this  identity,  this  close  affinity 
of  the  dramatic  formula  and  the  social  surroundings, 
is  so  strong  that  for  two  centuries  the  formula  remains 
almost  the  same.  It  only  loses  its  stiffness,  it  merely 
bends  in  the  eighteenth  century  with  Voltaire  and 
Beaumarchais.  The  ancient  society  is  then  profoundly 
disturbed ;  the  excitement  which  agitates  it  even 
touches  the  stage.  There  is  a  need  for  greater  action, 
there  is  a  sullen  revolt  against  the  rules,  a  vague  return 
to  nature.     Even  at  this  period  Diderot  and  Mercicr 

129 


130'  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

laid  down  squarely  the  basis  of  the  naturalistic  theater ; 
unfortunately,  neither  one  nor  the  other  produced  a 
masterpiece,  and  this  is  necessary  to  establish  a  new 
formula.  Besides,  the  classical  style  was  so  solidly 
planted  in  the  soil  of  the  ancient  monarchy  that  it  was 
not  carried  away  entirely  by  the  tempest  of  the  Revo- 
lution. It  persisted  for  some  time  longer,  weakened, 
degenerated,  gliding  into  insipidity  and  imbecility. 
Then  the  romantic  insurrection,  which  had  been  hatch- 
ing for  years,  burst  forth.  The  romantic  drama  killed 
the  expiring  tragedy ;  Victor  Hugo  gave  it  its  death- 
blow, and  reaped  the  benefits  of  a  victory  for  which 
many  others  had  labored.  It  is  worth  noticing  that 
through  the  necessities  of  the  struggle  the  romantic 
drama  became  the  antithesis  of  the  tragedy ;  it  opposed 
passion  to  duty,  action  to  words,  coloring  to  psycho- 
logical analysis,  the  Middle  Ages  to  antiquity.  It  was 
this  sparkling  contrast  which  assured  its  triumph. 
Tragedy  must  disappear,  its  knell  had  sounded ;  for  it 
was  no  longer  the  product  of  social  surroundings ;  an'd 
the  drama  brought  in  its  train  the  liberty  that  was 
necessary  in  order  boldly  to  clear  away  the  debris. 
But  it  seems  to-day  as  though  that  should  have  been 
the  limit  of  its  role.  It  was  but  a  superb  affirmation  of 
the  nothingness  of  rules,  of  the  necessity  of  life.  Not- 
withstanding all  this  uproar,  it  remained  the  rebellious 
child  of  tragedy ;  in  a  similar  fashion  it  lied ;  it  cos- 
tumed facts  and  characters  with  an  exaggeration  which 
makes  us  smile  nowadays ;  in  a  similar  fashion  it  had 
its  rules  and  its  effects — effects  much  more  irritating, 
as  they  were  falser.  In  fact,  there  was  but  one  more 
rhetoric  on  the  stage.  The  romantic  drama,  however, 
was  not  to  have  as  long  a  reign  as  tragedy.     After  per- 


NATURALISM  OIV   THE  STAGE.  13 1 

forming  its  revolutionary  task  it  died  out,  suddenly- 
exhausted,  leaving  the  place  clear  for  reconstruction. 
Thus  the  history  is  the  same  on  the  stage  as  in  the 
novel.  As  a  result  of  this  inevitable  crisis  in  romanti- 
cism, the  traditions  of  naturalism  reappear,  the  ideas  of 
Diderot  and  Mercier  come  more  and  more  to  the  sur- 
face. It  is  the  new  social  state,  born  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, which  fixes  little  by  little  a  new  dramatic  formula 
in  spite  of  many  fruitless  attempts  and  of  advancing  and 
retreating  footsteps.  This  work  was  inevitable.  It 
produced  itself  and  it  will  be  produced  again  by  the 
force  of  things,  and  it  will  never  stop  until  the  evolu- 
tion shall  be  complete.  The  naturalistic  formula  will 
be  to  our  century  what  the  classical  formula  has  been 
to  past  centuries. 

Now  we  have  arrived  at  our  own  period.  Here  I 
find  a  considerable  activity,  an  extraordinary  outlay  of 
talent.  It  is  an  immense  workroom  in  which  each  one 
works  with  feverish  energy.  All  is  confusion  as  yet, 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  lost  labor,  very  few  blows  strike 
out  direct  and  strong ;  still  the  spectacle  is  none  the 
less  marvelous.  One  thing  is  certain,  that  each  laborer 
is  working  toward  the  definite  triumph  of  naturalism, 
even  those  who  appear  to  fight  against  it.  They  are, 
in  spite  of  everything,  borne  along  by  the  current  of 
the  time  ;  they  go  of  necessity  where  it  goes.  As  none 
in  the  theater  has  been  of  large  enough  caliber  to 
establish  the  formula  at  a  stroke  by  the  sheer  force  of 
his  genius,  it  would  almost  seem  as  if  they  had  divided 
the  task,  each  one  giving  in  turn,  and  with  reference  to 
a  definite  point,  the  necessary  shove  onward.  Let  us 
now  see  who  are  the  best  known  workers  among  them. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  M.  Victorien  Sardou.     He 


132  NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE. 

is  the  actual  representative  of  the  comedy  with  a  plot. 
The  true  heir  of  M.  Scribe,  he  has  renovated  the  old 
tricks  and  pushed  scenic  art  to  the  point  of  prestidig- 
itation. This  kind  of  play  is  a  continuous  and  ever 
more  strongly  emphasized  reaction  against  the  old-time 
classical  stage.  The  moment  that  facts  are  opposed  to 
words,  that  action  is  placed  above  character,  the  sure 
tendency  is  to  a  complicated  plot,  to  marionettes  led 
by  a  thread,  to  sudden  changes,  to  unexpected  denoue- 
ments. The  reign  of  Scribe  was  a  notable  event  in 
dramatic  literature.  He  exaggerated  this  new  prin- 
ciple of  action,  making  it  the  principle  thing,  and  he  also 
displayed  great  ability  in  producing  extraordinary 
effects,  inventing  a  code  of  laws  and  recipes  all  his  own. 
This  was  inevitable ;  reactions  are  always  extreme. 
What  has  been  for  a  long  time  called  the  fashionable 
stage  had  then  no  other  source  than  an  exaggerated 
principle  of  action  at  the  expense  of  the  delineation 
of  character  and  the  analysis  of  emotion.  The  truth 
escaped  them  in  their  effort  to  grasp  it.  They  broke 
one  set  of  rules  to  invent  others,  which  were  falser  and 
more  ridiculous.  The  well-written  play — I  mean  by 
that  the  play  written  on  a  symmetrical  and  even  pat- 
tern— has  become  a  curious  and  amusing  plaything, 
which  diverts  the  whole  of  Europe.  From  this  dates 
the  popularity  of  our  repertoire  with  foreigners.  To- 
day it  has  undergone  a  slight  change;  M.  Victorien 
Sardou  thinks  less  of  the  cabinetwork,  but  though  he 
has  enlarged  the  frame  and  laid  more  stress  on  legei^ 
demain,  he  still  remains  the  great  representative  in  the 
theater  of  action,  of  amorous  action,  this  quality  domi- 
nating and  overpowering  everything  else.  His  great 
quality  is  movement ;  he  has  no  life,  he  has  only  move- 


NATURALISM  ON    THE   STAGE.  133 

ment,  which  carries  away  the  characters,  and  which  often 
throws  an  illusive  glamour  over  them ;  you  could 
almost  believe  them  to  be  living,  breathing  beings  ;  but 
they  are  in  reality  only  well-staged  puppets,  coming 
and  going  like  pieces  of  perfect  mechanism.  Ingenu- 
ity, dexterity,  just  a  suspicion  of  actuality,  a  great 
knowledge  of  the  stage,  a  particular  talent  for  episode, 
the  smallest  details  prodigally  and  vividly  brought 
forward — such  are  M.  Sardou's  principal  qualities. 
But  his  observation  is  superficial ;  the  human  data 
which  he  produces  have  dragged  about  everywhere  and 
are  only  patched  up  skillfully ;  the  world  into  which  he 
leads  us  is  a  pasteboard  world,  peopled  by  puppets. 
In  each  one  of  his  works  you  feel  the  solid  earth  giving 
way  beneath  your  feet ;  there  is  always  some  far- 
fetched plot,  a  false  emotion  carried  to  the  last 
extremity,  which  serves  as  a  pivot  for  the  whole  play, 
or  else  an  extraordinary  complication  of  facts,  which  a 
magical  word  is  supposed  to  unravel  at  the  end.  Real 
life  is  entirely  different.  Even  in  accepting  the  neces- 
sary exaggerations  of  a  farce,  one  looks  for  and  wants 
more  breadth  and  more  simplicity  in  the  means.  These 
plays  are  never  anything  more  than  vaudevilles  unnec- 
essarily exaggerated,  whose  comic  strength  partakes 
altogether  of  caricature.  I  mean  by  that  that  the 
laughter  evoked  is  not  spontaneous,  but  is  called  forth 
by  the  grimaces  of  the  actors.  It  is  useless  to  cite 
examples.  Ever^^one  has  seen  the  village  which  M. 
Victorien  Sardou  depicts  in  "  Les  Bourgeois  de  Pont- 
Arcy  " ;  the  character  of  his  observation  is  here  clearly 
revealed — silhouettes  hardly  rejuvenated,  the  stale 
jokes  of  the  day,  which  are  in  everyone's  mouth. 
Compared  with  Balzac,  for  instance,   of  how  low   an 


134  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

order  are  these  plays.  "  Rabagas,"  for  instance,  the 
satire  in  which  is  excellent,  is  spoiled  by  a  very  inferior 
amorous  intrigue.  "  La  Famille  Benoiton  "  in  which 
certain  caricatures  are  very  amusing,  has  also  its  faults 
— the  famous  4etters,  these  letters  which  are  to  be 
found  throughout  M.  Sardou's  writings,  and  which  are 
as  necessary  to  him  as  the  jugglery  and  the  presto- 
change  to  the  conjurer.  He  has  had  immense  success, 
a  fact  easy  of  explanation,  and  I  am  very  glad  he  has. 
Remark  one  thing,  that,  though  he  very  often  runs 
counter  to  the  truth,  he  has  nevertheless  been  of  great 
service  to  naturalism.  He  is  one  of  the  workmen  of 
whom  I  spoke  a  short  time  ago,  who  are  of  their  period, 
who  work  according  to  their  strength  for  a  formula 
which  they  have  not  the  genius  to  carry  out  in  its 
entirety.  His  personal  role  is  exactness  in  the  stage 
setting,  the  most  perfect  material  representation  pos- 
sible of  everyday  existence.  If  he  falsifies  in  filling 
out  the  frames,  at  least  he  has  the  frames  themselves, 
and  that  is  already  something  gained.  To  me  his 
reason  for  being  is  that  above  all  things.  He  has  come 
in  his  hour,  he  has  given  the  public  a  taste  for  life  and 
tableaux  hewn  from  reality. 

I  now  turn  to  M.  Alexander  Dumas,  fils.  Truly,  he 
has  done  better  work  still.  He  is  one  of  the  most 
skillful  workmen  in  the  naturalistic  workroom.  Little 
remains  for  him  but  to  find  the  complete  formula,  and 
then  let  him  realize  it.  To  him  we  owe  the  physio- 
logical studies  on  the  stage ;  he  alone,  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  has  been  brave  enough  to  show  us  the  sex 
in  the  young  girl,  the  beast  in  the  man.  "  La  Visite 
de  Noces,"  and  certain  scenes  in  the  "  Demi-Monde  " 
and  the  "  Fils  Naturel,"  possess  analysis  which  is  abso- 


NATURALISM    ON   THE  STAGE.  135 

lutely  remarkable  and  rigorously  truthful.  Here  are 
human  data  which  are  new  and  excellent ;  and  that  is 
certainly  very  rare  in  our  modern  repertoire.  You  see 
I  do  not  make  any  bones  about  praising  M.  Dumas, 
fils.  But  I  admire  him  with  reference  to  a  group  of 
ideas  which  later  will  cause  me  to  appear  very  severe 
upon  him.  According  to  my  way  of  thinking,  he  has 
had  a  crisis  in  his  life,  he  has  developed  a  philosophic 
vein,  he  manifests  a  deplorable  desire  for  legislation, 
preaching,  and  conversion.  He  has  made  himself  God's 
substitute  on  this  earth,  and  as  a  result  the  strangest 
freaks  of  imagination  spoil  his  faculties  of  observation. 
He  no  longer  makes  use  of  human  observation  save  to 
reach  superhuman  results  and  astonishing  situations, 
dressed  out  in  full-blown  fantasy.  Look  at  "  La  Femme 
de  Claude,"  "  L'Etrangere,"  and  other  pieces  still. 
This  is  not  all :  cleverness  has  spoiled  M.  Dumas.  A 
man  of  genius  is  not  clever,  and  a  man  of  genius  is 
necessary  to  establish  the  naturalistic  formula  in  a 
masterly  fashion.  M.  Dumas  has  imbued  all  his  char- 
acters with  his  wit ;  the  men,  the  women,  even  the  chil- 
dren in  his  plays  make  witty  remarks,  these  famous 
witticisms  which  so  often  give  a  play  success.  Noth- 
ing can  be  falser  or  more  fatiguing ;  it  destroys  all 
the  truth  of  the  dialogue.  Again,  M.  Dumas,  who 
before  everything  is  a  thorough  playwriter,  never 
hesitates  between  reality  and  a  scenic  exigency ; 
he  sacrifices  the  reality.  His  theory  is  that  truth 
is  of  little  consequence  provided  he  can  be  logical. 
A  play  becomes  with  him  a  problem  to  be  solved ; 
he  starts  out  from  a  given  point,  he  must  reach 
another  point  without  tiring  his  public ;  and  the 
victory   is  gained  if  you   have  been    agile  enough    to 


136  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

jump  over  the  breakneck  places,  and  have  forced  the 
pubHc  to  follow  you  in  spite  of  itself.  The  spectators 
may  protest  later,  cry  out  against  the  want  of  the 
reality,  fight  against  it ;  but  nevertheless  they  have 
belonged  to  the  anthor  during  the  evening.  All  M. 
Dumas'  plays  are  written  on  this  theory.  He 'wins  a 
triumph  in  spite  of  paradox,  unreality,  the  most  use- 
less and  risque  thesis,  through  the  mere  strength  of  his 
wrists.  He  who  has  been  touched  by  the  breath  of 
naturalism,  who  has  written  such  clearly  defined  scenes, 
never  recoils,  however,  before  a  fiction  when  he  needs 
it  for  the  sake  of  argument  or  simply  as  a  matter  of 
construction.  It  is  the  most  pitiable  mixture  of  imper- 
fect reality  and  whimsical  invention.  None  of  his 
plays  escape  this  double  current.  Do  you  remember 
in  the  "  Fils  Naturel  "  the  incredible  story  of  Clara 
Vignot,  and  in  "  L'Etrangere,"  the  extraordinary  story 
of  La  Vierge  du  Mai  ?  I  cite  at  haphazard.  It  would 
seem  as  though  M.  Dumas  never  made  use  of  truth 
but  as  a  springboard  with  which  to  jump  into  empti- 
ness. He  never  leads  us  into  a  world  that  we  know  ; 
the  surroundings  are  always  false  and  painful  ;  the 
characters  lose  all  their  natural  accent,  and  no  longer 
seem  to  belong  to  the  earth.  It  is  no  longer  life,  with 
its  breadth,  its  shades,  and  its  good  nature ;  it  is  a 
debate,  an  argument,  something  cold,  dry,  and  rasping 
in  which  there  is  no  air.  The  philosopher  has  killed 
the  observer — such  is  my  conclusion,  and  the  dramatic 
writer  has  finished  the  philosopher.  It  is  to  be  deeply 
regretted. 

Now  I  come  to  fimile  Augier.  He  is  the  real  master 
of  our  French  stage.  His  was  the  most  constant,  the 
most  sincere,  and  the  most  regular  effort.     It  must  be 


NATURALISM   ON    THE   STAGE.  137 

remembered  how  fiercely  he  was  attacked  by  the 
romanticists ;  they  called  him  the  poet  of  good  sense, 
they  ridiculed  certain  of  his  verses,  though  they  did  not 
dare  to  ridicule  verses  of  a  similiar  character  in  MoH^re. 
The  truth  was  that  M.  Augier  worried  the  romanti- 
cists, for  they  feared  in  him  a  powerful  adversary,  a 
writer  who  took  up  anew  the  old  French  traditions, 
ignoring  the  insurrection  of  1830.  The  new  formula 
grew  greater  with  him ;  exact  observation,  real  life, 
true  pictures  of  our  society  in  correct  and  quiet  lan- 
guage, were  introduced.  M.  Emile  Augier's  first  works, 
dramas  and  comedies  in  verse,  had  the  great  merit  of 
appearing  at  our  classical  theater ;  they  had  the  same 
simplicity  of  plot  as  the  best  classical  plays,  as  in 
"  Philiberte,"  for  example,  where  the  story  of  an  ugly 
girl  who  became  charming,  and  whom  all  the  world 
courted,  was  sufficient  to  fill  three  acts,  without  the 
slightest  complication  ;  their  main  point  was  the  eluci- 
dating of  character,  and  they  possessed  also  a  spirit  of 
genial  good  nature  and  the  strong,  quiet  movement  that 
would  naturally  arise  among  people  who  drew  apart 
and  then  came  together  again  as  their  emotions 
impelled  them.  My  conviction  is  that  the  natur- 
alistic formula  will  be  but  the  development  of  this 
classical  formula,  enlarged  and  adapted  to  our  sur- 
roundings. Later  M.  Emile  Augier  made  his  own  per- 
sonality more  strongly  felt.  He  could  not  help  employ- 
ing the  naturalistic  formula  when  he  began  to  write  in 
prose,  and  depicted  our  contemporaneous  society  more 
freely.  I  mention  more  particularly  "  Les  Lionnes 
Pauvres,"  "■  Le  Mariage  d'Olympe,"  "  Maitre  Guerin, 
"  Le  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,"  and  those  two  comedies 
which  created  the  most  talk,  "  Les  Effront^s,"  and  "  Le 


138  NYTURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

Fils  de  Giboyer."  These  are  very  remarkable  works, 
which  all,  more  or  less,  in  some  scenes,  realize  the  new 
theater,  the  stage  of  our  time.  The  bold,  unrepentant 
effrontery,  for  instance,  with  which  Guerin,  the  notary, 
dies,  so  novel  and  true  in  its  effect ;  the  excellent  picture 
of  the  newly  enriched  bourgeois  in  the  "  Gendre  de 
M.  Poirer";  both  of  these  are  admirable  studies  of 
human  nature ;  Giboyer,  again,  is  a  curious  creation, 
quite  true  to  life,  living  in  the  midst  of  a  society  depicted 
with  a  great  deal  of  excellent  sarcasm.  M.  Augier's 
strength,  and  what  makes  him  really  superior  to  M. 
Dumas,  ^/j,  is  his  more  human  quality.  This  human 
side  places  him  on  solid  ground ;  we  have  no  fear  that 
he  will  take  those  wild  leaps  into  space  ;  he  remains  well 
balanced,  not  so  brilliant,  perhaps,  but  much  more  sure. 
What  is  there  to  prevent  M.  Augier  from  being  the 
genius  waited  for,  the  genius  destined  to  make  the 
naturalistic  formula  a  fixture  ?  Why,  I  ask,  does  he  only 
remain  the  wisest  and  the  strongest  of  the  workmen  of 
the  present  hour?  In  my  opinion  it  is  because  he  has 
not  known  how  to  disengage  himself  from  conventions, 
from  stereotyped  ideas,  from  made-up  characters. 
His  stage  is  constantly  belittled  by  figures  '^  executes 
de  chic,''  as  they  say  in  the  studio.  Thus  it  is  rarely 
that  you  do  not  find,  in  his  comedies,  the  pure  young 
girl  who  is  very  rich  and  who  does  not  wish  to  marry, 
because  she  scorns  to  be  married  for  her  money.  His 
young  men  are  equally  heroes  of  honor  and  loyalty, 
sobbing  when  they  learn  thsft:  their  fathers  made  their 
money  unscrupulously.  In  a  word,  the  interesting 
character  predominates  ;  I  mean  the  ideal  type  of  good 
and  beautiful  sentiments  always  cast  in  the  same  mold, 
that  mere  symbol,  that  hieratic  personification  outside 


NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE,  139 

of  all  true  observation.  This  commandant  Guerin^ 
this  model  of  military  men,  whose  uniform  aids  in  the 
denouement ;  Giboyers  son,  that  archangel  of  delicacy, 
born  of  a  man  of  ill  repute,  and  Giboyer  himself,  so 
tender  in  his  baseness  ;  Henri,  the  son  of  Charrier  in 
*'  Les  Effront^s,"  who  goes  bond  for  his  father  when  he 
has  dabbled  in  an  equivocal  affair,  and  who  finally 
induces  the  latter  to  reimburse  the  men  whom  he  has 
wronged — all  these  are  very  beautiful,  very  touching  ; 
only  as  human  data  very  unlikely.  Nature  is  not  so 
unmixed,  neither  in  the  good  nor  in  the  evil.  You 
cannot  accept  these  interesting  characters  except  as  a 
contrast  and  a  consolation.  This  is  not  all ;  M.  Augier 
often  modifies  a  character  by  a  stroke  of  his  wand. 
His  reason  is  easily  seen  ;  he  wants  a  denouement,  and 
he  changes  a  character  after  an  effective  scene.  For 
instance,  the  climax  in  the  ''  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier." 
Really  it  is  very  accommodating ;  you  do  not  make  a 
light  man  out  of  a  dark  one  so  easily.  Considered  from 
the  point  of  genuine  observation  these  brusque  changes 
are  to  be  deplored ;  a  temperament  is  the  same  to  the 
end,  or  at  least  is  only  changed  by  slowly  working 
causes,  apparent  only  to  a  very  minute  analysis.  M. 
Augier's  best  characters,  those  which  will  remain  long- 
est, because  they  are  the  most  complete  and  logical, 
to  my  thinking,  are  Guerin  the  notary,  and  Pommeau 
in  "  Les  Lionnes  Pauvres."  The  climax  in  both  plays 
is  very  good.  Reading  *'  Les  Lionnes  Pauvres  "  over 
I  bethought  me  of  Mme.  Marneffe,  married  to  an 
honest  man.  Compare  Seraphine  to  Mme.  Marneffe, 
place  M.  Emile  Augier  and  Balzac  face  to  face  for 
one  instant,  and  you  will  understand  why,  notwith- 
standing his  good   qualities,  M.  Emile  Augier  has  not 


I40  NATURALISM  ON    THE    STAGE. 

firmly  established  the  new  formula  on  the  stage.  His 
hand  was  not  bold  enough  to  rid  himself  of  the  con- 
ventionalities which  encumber  the  stage.  His  plays 
are  too  much  of  a  mixture  ;  not  one  of  them  stands  out 
with  the  decisive  originality  of  genius.  He  softens 
his  lines  too  much ;  still  he  will  remain  in  our  dramatic 
literature  as  a  pioneer,  who  possessed  great  and  strong 
intelligence. 

I  would  like  to  have  spoken  of  M.  Eugene  Labiche, 
whose  comic  vein  is  very  refreshing ;  of  M.  Meilhac 
and  M.  Hal^vy,  these  sharp  observers  of  Parisian  life ; 
of  M.  Goudinet,  who  by  his  witty  scenes,  depicted 
without  any  action,  has  given  the  last  blow  to  the 
downfall  of  the  formula  of  Scribe. 

But  it  must  be  sufficient  for  me  to  explain  myself  by 
means  of  the  three  dramatic  authors  whose  work  I  have 
just  analyzed  and  who  are  really  the  most  celebrated. 
Their  talent  and  their  different  gifts  I  greatly  admire. 
Only  I  must  say,  once  more,  I  judge  them  from  the 
point  of  view  of  a  group  of  ideas  and  the  place  which 
their  works  will  hold  in  the  literary  movement  of  the 
century. 


IV. 

Now  that  all  the  elements  are  known  I  have  in  my 
hands  all  the  data  which  I  need  for  argument  and 
conclusion.  On  one  side,  we  have  seen  what  the  natu- 
ralistic novel  is  at  the  present  time  ;  on  the  other,  we 
have  just  ascertained  what  the  first  dramatic  authors 
have  made  of  our  stage.  It  remains  but  to  establish  a 
parallel. 

No  one  contests  the  point  that  all  the  different  forms 
of  literary  expression  hold  together  and  advance  at  the 
same  time.  When  they  have  been  stirred  up,  when 
the  ball  is  once  set  rolling,  there  is  a  general  push 
toward  the  same  goal.  The  romantic  insurrection  is  a 
striking  example  of  this  unity  of  movement  under  a 
definite  influence.  I  have  shown  that  the  force  of  the 
current  of  the  age  is  toward  naturalism.  To-day  this 
force  is  making  itself  felt  more  and  more ;  it  is  rushing 
on  us,  and  everything  must  obey  it.  The  novel  and 
the  stage  are  carried  away  by  it.  Only  it  has  happened 
that  the  evolution  has  been  much  more  rapid  in  the 
novel ;  it  triumphs  there  while  it  is  just  beginning  to 
put  in  an  appearance  on  the  stage.  This  was  bound  to 
be.  The  theater  has  always  been  the  stronghold  of 
convention  for  a  multiplicity  of  reasons,  which  I  will 
explain  later.  I  simply  wish,  then,  to  come  down  to 
this :  The  naturalistic  formula,  however  complete  and 
defined  in  the  novel,  is  very  far  from  being  so  on  the 
stage,  and  I  conclude  from  that  that  it  will  be  com- 

141 


142  NATURALISM  ON  THE  STAGE, 

pleted,  that  it  will  assume  sooner  or  later  there  its 
scientific  rigor,  or  else  the  stage  will  become  flat,  and 
more  and  more  inferior. 

Some  people  are  very  much  irritated  with  me ;  they 
cry  out :  "  But  what  do  you  ask  ?  what  evolution  do 
you  want?  Is  the  evolution  not  an  accomplished  fact? 
Have  not  M.  Emile  Augier,  M.  Dumas,  y?/^,  and  M. 
Victorien  Sardou  pushed  the  study  and  the  painting  of 
our  society  to  the  farthest  possible  lengths?  Let  us 
stop  where  we  are.  We  have  already  too  much  of  the 
realities  of  this  world."  In  the  first  place,  it  is  very 
naive  in  these  people  to  wish  to  stop ;  nothing  is 
stable  in  a  society,  everything  is  borne  along  by  a  con- 
tinuous movement.  Things  go  in  spite  of  everything 
where  they  ought  to  go.  I  contend  that  the  evolution, 
far  from  being  an  accomplished  fact  on  the  stage,  is 
hardly  commenced.  Up  to  the  present  time  we  have 
taken  only  the  first  steps.  We  must  wait  until  certain 
ideas  have  wedged  their  way  in,  and  until  the  public 
becomes  accustomed  to  them,  and  until  the  force  of 
things  abolishes  the  obstacles  one  by  one.  I  have 
tried,  in  rapidly  glancing  over  MM.  Victorien  Sardou, 
Dumas,  yf/y,  and  Emile  Augier,  to  tell  for  what  reasons 
I  look  upon  them  as  simply  laborers  who  are  clearing 
the  paths  of  debris^  and  not  as  creators,  not  as  geniuses 
who  are  building  a  monument.  Then  after  them  I  am 
waiting  for  something  else. 

This  something  else  which  arouses  so  much  indigna- 
tion and  draws  forth  so  many  pleasantries  is,  however, 
very  simple.  We  have  only  to  read  Balzac,  M.  Gus- 
tave  Flaubert,  and  MM.  de  Goncourt  again — in  a  word, 
the  naturalistic  novelists — to  discover  what  it  is.  I  am 
waiting  for  them,  in  the  first  place,  to  put  a  man  of 


NATURALISM  ON  THE  STAGE.  143 

flesh  and  bones  on  the  stage,  taken  from  reality,  scien.^  [ 
tifically  analyzed,  without  one  lie.  I  am  waiting  for  ' 
them  to  rid  us  of  fictitious  characters,  of  conventional 
symbols  of  virtue  and  vice,  which  possess  no  value  as 
human  data.  I  am  waiting  for  the  surroundings  to 
determine  the  characters,  and  for  characters  to  act 
according  to  the  logic  of  facts,  combined  with  the 
logic  of  their  own  temperament.  I  am  waiting  until 
there  is  no  more  jugglery  of  any  kind,  no  more  strokes 
of  a  magical  wand,  changing  in  one  minute  persons 
and  things.  I  am  waiting  for  the  time  to  come  when 
they  will  tell  us  no  more  incredible  stories,  when  they 
will  no  longer  spoil  the  effects  of  just  observations  by 
romantic  incidents,  the  result  being  to  destroy  even 
the  good  parts  of  a  play.  I  am  waiting  for  them  to 
abandon  the  cut  and  dried  rules,  the  worked-out 
formulas,  the  tears  and  cheap  laughs.  I  am  waiting 
until  a  dramatic  work  free  from  declamations,  big 
words,  and  grand  sentiments  has  the  high  morality  of 
truth,  teaches  the  terrible  lesson  that  belongs  to  all 
sincere  inquiry.  I  am  waiting,  finally,  until  the  evolu- 
tion accomplished  in  the  novel  takes  place  on  the 
stage  ;  until  they  return  to  the  source  of  science  and 
modern  afts,  to  the  study  of  nature,  to  the  anatomy  of 
man,  to  the  painting  of  life,  in  an  exact  reproduction, 
more  original  and  powerful  than  anyone  has  so  far 
dared  to  place  upon  the  boards.  _^ 

This  is  what  I  am  waiting  for.  They  shrug  their 
shoulders  and  reply  to  me  that  I  shall  wait  forever. 
Their  decisive  argument  is  that  you  must  not  expect 
these  things  on  the  stage.  The  stage  is  not  the  novel. 
It  has  given  us  what  it  could  give  us.  That  ends  it ; 
we  must  be  satisfied. 


I 


144  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

Now  we  are  at  the  pith  of  the  quarrel.  I  am  trying 
to  uproot  the  very  conditions  of  existence  on  the 
stage.  What  I  ask  is  impossible,  which  amounts  to 
saying  that  fictions  are  necessary  on  the  stage ;  a  play 
rriust  have  some  romantic  corners,  it  must  turn  in 
equilibrium  round  certain  situations,  which  must  un- 
ravel themselves  at  the  proper  time.  They  take  up 
the  business  side  ;  first,  any  analysis  is  wearisome  ;  the 
public  demands  facts,  always  facts ;  then  there  is  the 
perspective  of  the  stage ;  an  act  must  be  played  in 
three  hours,  no  matter  what  its  length  is;  then  the 
characters  are  endowed  with  a  particular  value,  which 
necessitates  setting  up  fictions.  I  will  not  put  forth  all 
the  arguments.  I  arrive  at  the  intervention  of  the 
public,  which  is  really  considerable ;  the  public  wishes 
>  this,  the  public  will  not  have  that ;  it  will  not  tolerate 
too  much  truth ;  it  exacts  four  attractive  puppets  to 
one  real  character  taken  from  life.  In  a  word,  the 
stage  is  the  domain  of  conventionality ;  everything  is 
conventional,  from  the  decorations  to  the  footlights 
which  illuminate  the  actors,  even  down  to  the  char- 
acters, who  are  led  by  a  string.  Truth  can  only  enter 
by  little  doses  adroitly  distributed.  They  even  go  so 
far  as  to  swear  that  the  theater  will  cease  to  exist  the 
day  that  it  ceases  to  be  an  amusing  lie,  destined  to 
console  the  spectators  in  the  evening  for  the  sad 
realities  of  the  day. 

I  know  all  these  reasonings,  and  I  shall  try  to 
respond  to  them  presently,  when  I  reach  my  con- 
clusion. It  is  evident  that  each  kind  of  literature  has 
its  own  conditions  of  existence.  A  novel,  which  one 
reads  alone  in  his  room,  with  his  feet  on  his  andirons, 
is  not   a   play  which   is   acted   before   two   thousand 


NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE.  145 

spectators.  The  novelist  has  time  and  space  before"^ 
him ;  all  sorts  of  liberties  are  permitted  him  ;  he  can  I 
use  one  hundred  pages,  if  it  pleases  him,  to  analyze  at  j 
his  leisure  a  certain  character  ;  he  can  describe  his  sur-  ^ 
roundings  as  much  as  he  pleases  ;  he  can  cut  his  story- 
short,  can  retrace  his  steps,  changing  places  twenty 
times — in  one  word,  he  is  absolute  master  of  his  matter. 
The  dramatic  author,  on  the  contrary,  is  inclosed  in 
a  rigid  frame ;  he  must  heed  all  sorts  of  necessities. 
He  moves  only  in  the  midst  of  obstacles.  Then,  above 
all,  there  is  the  question  of  the  isolated  reader  and  the 
spectators  taken  en  masse ;  the  solitary  reader  tolerates 
everything,  goes  where  he  is  led,  even  when  he  is  dis- 
gusted ;  while  the  spectators,  taken  e7i  masse,  are  seized 
with  prudishness,  with  frights,  with  sensibilities  of 
which  the  author  must  take  notice  under  pain  of 
a  certain  fall.  All  this  is  true,  and  it  is  precisely  for 
this  reason  that  the  stage  is  the  last  citadel  of  con- 
ventionality, as  I  stated  further  back.  If  the  natural- 
istic movement  had  not  encountered  on  the  boards  a 
difficult  ground,  filled  with  obstacles,  it  would  already 
have  taken  root  there  with  the  intensity  and  with 
the  success  which  have  attended  the  novel.  The  stage, 
under  its  conditions  of  existence,  must  be  the  last,  the 
most  laborious,  and  the  most  bitterly  disputed  conquest 
of  the  spirit  of  truth. 

I  will  remark  here  that  the  evolution  of  each  cen- 
tury is  of  necessity  incarnated  in  a  particular  form  of 
literature.  Thus  the  seventeenth  century  evidently 
incarnated  itself  in  the  dramatic  formula.  Our  theater 
threw  forth  then  an  incomparable  glitter,  to  the  detri- 
ment of  lyrical  poetry  and  the  novel.  The  reason  was 
that  the  stage  then  exactly  responded  to  the  spirit  of 


J 


I4<5  NATURALISM  ON  THE  STAGE. 

the  period.  It  abstracted  man  from  nature,  studied 
him  with  the  philosophical  tool  of  the  time ;  it  has 
the  swing  of  a  pompous  rhetoric,  the  poHte  manners  of 
a  society  which  had  reached  perfect  maturity.  It  is 
the  fruit  of  the  ground ;  its  formula  is  written  from 
that  point  where  the  then  civilization  flowed  with  the 
greatest  ease  and  perfection.  Compare  our  epoch  to 
that,  and  you  will  understand  the  decisive  reasons 
which  made  Balzac  a  great  novelist  instead  of  a  great 
dramatist.  The  spirit  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with 
its  return  to  nature,  with  its  need  of  exact  inquiry, 
quitted  the  stage,  where  too  much  conventionality 
hampered  it,  in  order  to  stamp  itself  indelibly  on  the 
novel,  whose  field  is  limitless.  And  thus  it  is  that 
scientifically  the  novel  has  become  the  form,  par  excel- 
lence^ of  our  age,  the  first  path  in  which  naturalism  was 
to  triumph.  To-day  it  is  the  novelists  who  are  the 
literary  princes  of  the  period  ;  they  possess  the  lan- 
guage, they  hold  the  method,  they  walk  in  the  front 
rank,  side  by  side  with  science.  If  the  seventeenth 
century  was  the  century  of  the  stage,  the  nineteenth 
will  belong  to  the  novel. 

Let  us  admit  for  one  moment  that  criticism  has 
some  show  of  reason  when  it  asserts  that  naturalism  is 
impossible  on  the  stage.  Here  is  what  they  assert. 
Conventionality  is  inevitable  on  the  stage ;  there  must 
always  be  lying  there.  We  are  condemned  to  a  con- 
tinuance of  M.  Sardou's  juggling;  to  the  theories  and 
witticisms  of  M.  Dumas,  fils ;  to  the  sentimental  char- 
acters of  M.  Emile  Augier.  We  shall  produce  nothing 
finer  than  the  genius  of  these  authors  ;  we  must  accept 
them  as  the  glory  of  our  time  on  the  stage.  They  are 
what  they  are  because  the  theater  wishes  them  to  be 


NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE.  147 

such.  If  they  have  not  advanced  further  to  the  front,  if 
they  have  not  obeyed  more  implicitly  the  grand  current 
of  truth  which  is  carrying  us  onward,  it  is  the  theater 
which  forbids  them.  That  is  a  wall  which  shuts  the 
way,  even  to  the  strongest.  Very  well !  But  then  it  is 
the  theater  which  you  condemn ;  it  is  to  the  stage  that 
you  have  given  the  mortal  blow.  You  crush  it  under 
the  novel,  you  assign  it  an  inferior  place,  you  make  it 
despicable  and  useless  in  the  eyes  of  future  genera- 
tions. What  do  you  wish  us  to  do  with  the  stage,  we 
other  seekers  after  truth,  anatomists,  analysts,  searchers 
of  life,  compilers  of  human  data,  if  you  prove  to  us 
that  there  we  cannot  make  use  of  our  tools  and  our 
methods  ?  Really  !  The  theater  lives  only  on  conven- 
tionalities ;  it  must  lie ;  it  refuses  our  experimental 
literature !  Oh,  well,  then,  the  century  will  put  the 
stage  to  one  side,  it  will  abandon  it  to  the  hands  of  the 
public  amusers,  while  it  will  perform  elsewhere  its  great 
and  glorious  work.  You  yourselves  pronounce  the 
verdict  and  kill  the  stage.  It  is  very  evident  that  the 
naturalistic  evolution  will  extend  itself  more  and  more, 
as  it  possesses  the  intelligence  of  the  age.  While  the 
novelists  are  digging  always  further  forward,  producing 
newer  and  more  exact  data,  the  stage  will  flounder 
deeper  every  day  in  the  rhidst  of  its  romantic  fictions, 
its  worn-out  plots,  and  its  skillfulness  of  handicraft. 
The  situation  will  be  the  more  sad  because  the  public 
will  certainly  acquire  a  taste  for  reality  in  reading 
novels.  The  movement  is  making  itself  forcibly  felt 
even  now.  There  will  come  a  time  when  the  public 
will  shrug  its  shoulders  and  demand  an  innovation. 
Either  the  theater  will  be  naturalistic  or  it  will  not  be 
at  all ;  such  is  the  formal  conclusion. 


148  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

And  even  now,  to-day,  is  not  this  becoming  the  situ- 
ation ?  All  of  the  new  literary  generation  turn  their 
backs  on  the  theater.  Question  the  young  men  of 
twenty-five  years — I  speak  of  those  who  possess  a  real 
literary  temperament ;  they  will  show  great  contempt 
for  the  theater;  they  will  speak  of  its  successful 
authors  with  such  faint  approval  that  you  will  become 
indignant.  They  look  upon  the  stage  as  being  of  an 
inferior  rank.  That  comes  solely  from  the  fact  that  it 
does  not  offer  them  the  soil  of  which  they  have  need ; 
they  find  neither  enough  liberty  nor  enough  truth 
there.  They  all  veer  toward  the  novel.  Should  the 
stage  be  conquered  by  a  stroke  of  genius  to-morrow 
you  would  see  what  an  outpouring  would  take  place. 
When  I  wrote  elsewhere  that  the  boards  were  empty  I 
merely  meant  they  had  not  yet  produced  a  Balzac. 
You  could  not,  in  good  faith,  compare  M.  Sardou, 
Dumas,  or  Augier  to  Balzac ;  all  the  dramatic  authors, 
put  one  on  top  of  the  other,  do  not  equal  him  in  stature. 
The  boards  will  remain  empty,  from  this  point  of  view, 
so  long  as  a  master  hand  has  not,  by  embodying  the 
formula  in  a  work  of  undying  genius,  drawn  after  him 
to-morrow's  generations. 


V. 

I  HAVE  perfect  faith  in  the  future  of  our  stage.  I 
will  not  admit  that  the  critics  are  right  in  saying 
that  naturalism  is  impossible  on  the  stage,  and  I  am 
going  to  explain  under  what  conditions  the  movement 
will  without  question  be  brought  about. 

It  is  not  true  that  the  stage  must  remain  stationary; 
it  is  not  true  that  its  actual  conventionaHties  are  the 
fundamental  conditions  of  its  existence. 

Everything  marches,  I  repeat;  everything  marches 
forward.  The  authors  of  to-day  will  be  overridden ; 
they  cannot  have  the  presumption  to  settle  dramatic 
literature  forever.  What  they  have  lisped  forth  others 
will  cry  from  the  house  top  ;  but  the  stage  will  not  be 
shaken  to  its  foundations  on  that  account ;  it  will  enter, 
on  the  contrary,  on  a  wider,  straighter  path.  People 
have  always  denied  the  march  forward ;  they  have 
denied  to  the  newcomers  the  power  and  the  right  to 
accomplish  what  has  not  been  performed  by  their 
elders.  The  social  and  literary  evolutions  have  an 
irresistible  force  ;  they  traverse  with  a  slight  bound  the 
enormous  obstacles  which  were  reputed  impassable. 
The  theater  may  well  be  what  it  is  to-day ;  to-morrow 
it  will  be  what  it  should  be.  And  when  the  event  takes 
place  all  the  world  will  think  it  perfectly  natural. 

At  this  point  I  enter  into  mere  probabilities,  and  I 
no  longer  pretend  to  the  same  scientific  rigor.  So  long 
as  I  have  reasoned  on  facts  I  have  demonstrated  the 

149 


ISO  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

truth  of  my  position.  At  present  I  am  content  to  fore- 
tell. The  evolution  will  take  place,  that  is  certain. 
But  will  it  pass  to  the  left  ?  will  it  pass  to  the  right  ? 
I  do  not  know.     One  can  reason,  and  that  is  all. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  certain  that  the  conditions 
existing  on  the  stage  will  always  be  different.  The 
novel,  thanks  to  its  freedom,  will  remain  perhaps  the 
tool,  par  excellence^  of  the  century,  while  the  stage  will 
but  follow  it  and  complete  the  action.  The  wonderful 
power  of  the  stage  must  not  be  forgotten,  and  its 
immediate  effect  on  the  spectators.  There  is  no  better 
instrument  for  propagating  anything.  If  the  novel, 
then,  is  read  by  the  fireside,  in  several  instances,  with  a 
patience  tolerating  the  longest  details,  the  naturalistic 
drama  should  proclaim  before  all  else  that  it  has  no 
connection  with  this  isolated  reader,  but  with  a  crowd 
who  cry  out  for  clearness  and  conciseness.  I  do  not 
see  that  the  naturalistic  formula  is  antagonistic  to  this 
conciseness  and  this  clearness.  It  is  simply  a  question 
of  changing  the  composition  and  the  body  of  the  work. 
The  novel  analyzes  at  great  length  and  with  a  minute- 
ness of  detail  which  overlooks  nothing ;  the  stage  can 
analyze  as  briefly  as  it  wishes  by  actions  and  words. 
A  word,  a  cry,  in  Balzac's  works  is  often  sufficient  to 
present  the  entire  character.  This  cry  belongs  essen- 
tially to  the  stage.  As  to  the  acts,  they  are  consistent 
with  analysis  in  action,  which  is  the  most  striking  form 
of  action  one  can  make.  When  we  have  gotten  rid  of 
the  child's  play  of  a  plot,  the  infantile  game  of  tying 
up  complicated  threads  in  order  to  have  the  pleasure 
of  untying  them  again ;  when  a  play  shall  be  nothing 
more  than  a  real  and  logical  story — we  shall  then  enter 
into  perfect  analysis ;  we  shall  analyze  necessarily  the 


NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE.  15 1 

double  influence  of  characters  over  facts,  of  facts  over 
characters.  This  is  what  has  led  me  to  say  so  often 
that  the  naturalistic  formula  carries  us  back  to  the 
source  of  our  national  stage,  the  classical  formula.  We 
find  this  continuous  analysis  of  character,  which  I  con- 
sider so  necessary,  in  Corneille's  tragedies  and  Moliere's 
comedies ;  plot  takes  a  secondary  place,  the  work  is  a 
long  dissertation  in  dialogue  on  man.  Only  instead 
of  an  abstract  man  I  would  make  a  natural  man,  put 
him  in  his  proper  surroundings,  and  analyze  all  the 
physical  and  social  causes  which  make  him  what  he  is. 
In  a  word,  the  classical  formula  is  to  me  a  good  one, 
on  condition  that  the  scientific  method  is  employed  in 
the  study  of  actual  society,  in  the  same  way  that  the 
chemist  studies  minerals  and  their  properties. 

As  to  the  long  descriptions  of  the  novelist,  they 
cannot  be  put  upon  the  stage ;  that  is  evident.  The 
naturalistic  novelists  describe  a  great  deal,  not  for  the 
pleasure  of  describing,  as  some  reproach  them  with 
doing,  but  because  it  is  part  of  their  formula  to  be  cir- 
cumstantial, and  to  complete  the  character  by  means  of 
his  surroundings.  Man  is  no  longer  an  intellectual 
abstraction  for  them,  as  he  was  looked  upon  in  the 
seventeenth  century ;  he  is  a  thinking  beast,  who  forms 
part  of  nature,  and  who  is. subject  to  the  multiplicity  of 
influences  of  the  soil  on  which  he  grows  and  where  he 
lives.  This  is  why  a  climate,  a  country,  a  horizon,  a 
room,  are  often  of  decisive  importance.  The  novelist 
no  longer  separates  his  character  from  the  air  which  he 
breathes  ;  he  does  not  describe  him  in  order  to  exercise 
his  rhetorical  powers,  as  the  didactic  poets  did,  as 
Delille  does,  for  example  ;  he  simply  notes  the  material 
conditions  in  which  he   finds  his  characters  at  each 


152  NATURALISM  ON   THE    STAGE. 

hour,  and  in  which  the  facts  are  produced,  in  order  to 
be  absolutely  thorough  in  order  that  his  inquiry  may 
belong  to  the  world's  great  whole  and  reproduce  the 
reality  in  its  entirety.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  carry 
descriptions  to  the  stage ;  they  are  found  there  natu- 
rally. Are  not  the  stage  settings  a  continual  description, 
which  can  be  made  much  more  exact  and  startling 
than  the  descriptions  in  a  novel  ?  It  is  only  painted 
pasteboard,  some  say  ;  that  may  be  so,  but  in  a  novel  it  is 
less  than  painted  pasteboard — it  is  but  blackened  paper, 
notwithstanding  which  the  illusion  is  produced.  After 
the  scenery,  so  surprisingly  true,  that  we  have  recently 
seen  in  our  theaters,  no  one  can  deny  the  possibility  of 
producing  on  the  stage  the  reality  of  surroundings.  It 
now  remains  for  dramatic  authors  to  utilize  this  reality, 
they  furnishing  the  characters  and  the  facts,  the  scene 
painters,  under  their  directions,  furnishing  the  descrip- 
tions, as  exact  as  shall  be  necessary.  It  but  remains 
for  a  dramatic  author  to  make  use  of  his  surroundings 
as  the  novelists  do,  since  the  latter  know  how  to  intro- 
duce them  and  make  them  real. 

I  will  add  that  the  theater,  being  a  material  repro- 
duction of  life,  external  surroundings  have  always  been 
a  necessity  there.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  how- 
ever, as  nature  was  not  taken  into  consideration,  as 
man  was  looked  upon  only  as  a  purely  intellectual 
being,  the  scenery  was  vague — a  peristyle  of  a  temple, 
any  kind  of  a  room,  or  a  public  place.  To-day  the 
naturalistic  movement  has  brought  about  a  more  and 
more  perfect  exactness  in  the  stage  settings.  This  was 
produced  little  by  little,  almost  inevitably.  I  even  find 
here  a  proof  of  the  secret  work  that  naturalism  has 
accomplished  in  the  stage  since  the  commencement  of 


NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE.  15 3 

the  century.  I  have  not  time  to  study  any  more 
deeply  this  question  of  decorations  and  accessories ;  I 
must  content  myself  by  stating  that  description  is  not 
only  possible  on  the  stage,  but  it  is,  moreover,  a  neces- 
sity which  is  imposed  as  an  essential  condition  of 
existence. 

There  is  no  necessity  for  me  to  expatiate  on  the 
change  of  place.  For  a  long  time  the  unity  of  place 
has  not  been  observed.  The  dramatic  authors  do  not 
hesitate  to  cover  an  entire  existence,  to  take  the  spec- 
tators to  both  ends  of  the  world.  Here  conventionaHty 
remains  mistress,  as  it  is  also  in  the  novel.  It  is  the 
same  as  to  the  question  of  time.  It  is  necessary  to 
cheat.  A  play  which  calls  for  fifteen  days,  for  ex- 
ample, must  be  acted  in  the  three  hours  which  we  set 
apart  for  reading  a  novel  or  seeing  it  played  at  the 
theater.  We  are  not  the  creative  force  which  governs 
the  world ;  our  power  of  creation  is  of  a  second-hand 
sort ;  we  only  analyze,  sum  up  in  a  nearly  always  grop- 
ing fashion,  happy  and  proclaimed  as  geniuses  when 
we  can  disengage  one  ray  of  the  truth. 

I  now  come  to  the  language.  They  pretend  to  say 
that  there  is  a  special  style  for  the  stage.  They  want 
it  to  be  a  style  altogether  different  from  the  ordinary 
style  of  speaking,  more  sonorous,  more  nervous,  written 
in  a  higher  key,  cut  in  facets,  no  doubt  to  make  the 
chandelier  jets  sparkle.  In  our  time,  for  example, 
M.  Dumas,  fils^  has  the  reputation  of  being  a  great  dra- 
matic author.  His  "mots"  are  famous.  They  go  off 
like  sky  rockets,  falling  again  in  showers  to  the  applause 
of  the  spectators.  Besides,  all  his  characters  speak  the 
same  language,  the  language  of  witty  Paris,  cutting  in 
its  pardoxes,  having  a  good  hit  always  in  view,  and 


154  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

sharp  and  hard.  I  do  not  deny  the  sparkle  of  this 
language — not  a  very  solid  sparkle,  it  is  true — but  I 
deny  its  truth.  Nothing  is  so  fatiguing  as  these  con- 
tinual sneering  sentences.  I  would  rather  see  more 
elasticity,  greater  naturalness.  They  are  at  one  and 
the  same  time  too  well  and  not  well  enough  written. 
The  true  style-setters  of  the  epoch  are  the  novelists ; 
to  find  the  infallible,  living,  original  style  you  must 
turn  to  M.  Gustave  Flaubert  and  to  MM.  de  Goncourt. 
When  you  compare  M.  Dumas'  style  to  that  of  these 
great  prose  writers  you  find  it  is  no  longer  correct — 
it  has  no  color,  no  movement.  What  I  want  to  hear 
on  the  stage  is  the  language  as  it  is  spoken  every  day; 
if  we  cannot  produce  on  the  stage  a  conversation  with 
its  repetitions,  its  length,  and  its  useless  words,  at 
least  the  movement  and  the  tone  of  the  conversation 
could  be  kept ;  the  particular  turn  of  mind  of  each 
talker,  the  reality,  in  a  word,  reproduced  to  the  neces- 
sary extent.  MM.  Goncourt  have  made  a  curious 
attempt  at  this  in  "  Henriette  Mar^chal,"  that  play 
which  no  one  would  listen  to,  and  which  no  one  knows 
anything  about.  The  Grecian  actors  spoke  through  a 
brass  tube;  under  Louis  XIV.  the  comedians  sang 
their  roles  in  a  chanting  tone  to  give  them  more 
pomp ;  to-day  we  are  content  to  say  that  there  is  a 
particular  language  belonging  to  the  stage,  more  so- 
norous and  explosive.  You  can  see  by  this  that  we  are 
progressing.  One  day  they  will  perceive  that  the  best 
style  on  the  stage  is  that  which  best  sets  forth  the 
spoken  conversation,  which  puts  the  proper  word  in 
the  right  place,  giving  it  its  just  value.  The  natural- 
istic novelists  have  already  written  excellent  models  of 
dialogue,  reduced  to  strictly  useful  words. 


NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE.  155 

There  now  remains  but  the  question  of  sentimental 
characters.  I  do  not  disguise  the  fact  that  it  is  of 
prime  importance.  The  public  remain  cold  and  irre- 
sponsive when  their  passion  for  an  ideal  character,  for 
some  combination  of  loyalty  and  honor,  is  not  satisfied. 
A  play  which  presents  to  them  but  living  characters 
taken  from  real  life  looks  black  and  austere  to  them, 
when  it  does  not  exasperate  them.  It  is  on  this  point 
that  the  battle  of  naturalism  rages  most  fiercely.  We 
must  learn  to  be  patient.  At  the  present  moment  a 
secret  change  is  taking  place  in  the  public  feeling; 
people  are  coming  little  by  little,  urged  onward  by  the 
spirit  of  the  century,  to  admit  the  bold  reproduction  of 
real  life,  and  are  even  beginning  to  acquire  a  taste  for 
it.  When  they  can  no  longer  stand  certain  falsehoods 
we  shall  very  nearly  have  gained  our  point.  Already 
the  novelists*  work  is  preparing  the  soil  in  accustom- 
ing them  to  the  idea.  An  hour  will  strike  when  it  will 
be  sufficient  for  a  master  to  reveal  himself  on  the  stage 
to  find  a  public  ready  to  become  enthusiastic  in  favor 
of  the  truth.  It  will  be  a  question  of  tact  and  strength. 
They  will  see  then  that  the  highest  and  most  useful 
lessons  will  be  taught  by  depicting  what  is,  and  not  by 
oft-dinned  generalities,  nor  by  airs  of  bravado,  which 
are  chanted  merely  to  tickle  our  ears. 

The  two  formulas  are  before  us :  the  naturalistic 
formula,  which  makes  the  stage  a  study  and  a  picture  } 
of  real  life  ;  and  the  conventional  formula,  which  makes 
it  purely  an  amusement  for  the  mind,  an  intellectual 
speculation,  an  art  of  adjustment  and  symmetry  regu- 
lated after  a  certain  code.  In  fact,  it  all  depends  upon 
the  idea  one  has  of  literature,  and  of  dramatic  literature 
in  "particular.     If  we  admit  that  literature  is  but  an 


/ 


156  NATURALISM  ON   THE   STAGE. 

inquiry  about  men  and  things  entered  into  by  original 
minds,  we  are  naturalists ;  if  we  pretend  that  literature 
is  a  framework  superimposed  upon  the  truth,  that 
a  writer  must  make  use  of  observation  merely  in  order 
to  exhibit  his  power  of  invention  and  arrangement,  we 
are  idealists,  and  proclaim  the  necessity  of  convention- 
ality. I  have  just  been  very  much  striick  by  an  exam- 
ple. They  have  just  revived,  at  the  Com^die  Fran- 
9aise,  "  Le  Fils  Naturel  "  of  M.  Dumas,  fils.  A  critic 
immediately  jumps  into  enthusiasm.  Here  is  what  he 
says :  "  Mon  Dieu  !  but  that  is  well  put  together  !  How 
polished,  dove-tailed,  and  compact !  Is  not  this 
machinery  pretty  ?  And  this  one,  it  comes  just  in  time 
to  work  itself  into  this  other  trick,  which  sets  all  the 
machinery  in  motion."  Then  he  becomes  exhausted, 
he  cannot  find  words  eulogistic  enough  in  which  to 
speak  of  the  pleasure  he  experiences  in  this  piece  of 
mechanism.  Would  you  not  think  he  was  speaking  of 
a  plaything,  of  a  puzzle,  with  which  he  amused  himself 
by  upsetting  and  then  putting  all  the  pieces  in  order 
again  ?  As  for  me,  "  Le  Fils  Naturel "  does  not  affect 
me  in  the  least.  And  why  is  that  ?  Am  I  a  greater 
fool  than  the  critic  ?  I  do  not  think  so.  Only  I  have 
no  taste  for  clockwork,  and  I  have  a  great  deal  for 
truth.  Yes,  truly,  it  is  a  pretty  piece  of  mechanism. 
But  I  would  rather  it  had  been  a  picture  of  life.  I 
yearn  for  life  with  its  shiver,  its  breath,  and  its  strength  ; 
I  long  for  life  as  it  is. 

We  shall  yet  have  life  on  the  stage  as  we  already 
have  it  in  the  novel.  This  pretended  logic  of  actual 
plays,  this  equality  and  symmetry  obtained  by  proc- 
esses of  reasoning,  which  come  from  ancient  meta- 
physics, will  fall  before  the  natural  logic  of  facts  and 


NATURALISM  ON   THE  STAGE.  157 

beings  such  as  reality  presents  to  us.  Instead  of  a 
stage  of  fabrication  we  shall  have  a  stage  of  observa- 
tion. How  will  the  evolution  be  brought  about  ?  To- 
morrow will  tell  us.  I  have  tried  to  foresee,  but  I 
leave  to  genius  the  realization.  I  have  already  given 
my  conclusion  :  Our  stage  will  be  naturalistic,  or  it  will 
cease  to  exist. 

Now  that  I  have  tried  to  gather  my  ideas  together, 
may  I  hope  that  they  will  no  longer  put  words  into  my 
mouth  which  I  have  never  spoken  ?  Will  they  still 
continue  to  see,  in  my  critical  opinions,  I  know  not 
what  ridiculous  inflations  of  vanity  or  odious  retalia- 
tions ?  I  am  but  the  most  earnest  soldier  of  truth.  If 
I  am  mistaken,  my  judgments  are  there  in  print ;  and 
fifty  years  from  now  I  shall  be  judged,  in  my  turn;  I 
may  perhaps  be  accused  of  injustice,  blindness,  and 
useless  violence.     I  accept  the  verdict  of  the  future. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  MONEY 
IN  LITERATURE. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  MONEY 
IN  LITERATURE. 


I  OFTEN  hear  the  following  complaint  uttered  around 
me  :  "  The  literary  instinct  is  dying  out,  letters  are 
pushed  to  one  side  by  commerce,  money  is  destroying 
talent."  And  there  are  many  other  accusations  uttered 
against  the  democracy  which  is  invading  our  salons  and 
our  academies,  which  detracts  from  the  beauty  of  our 
language,  which  makes  the  writer  a  merchant,  dis- 
posing or  not  of  his  merchandise  according  to  the 
trademark  it  bears,  and  as  a  result  of  the  transaction 
amassing  a  fortune  or  dying  in  misery. 

These  complaints  and  accusations  enrage  me.  It  is 
certain,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  literary  spirit  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  is  no  longer  that 
of  our  nineteenth  century.  An  intellectual  movement 
has  little  by  little  brought  about  a  transformation 
which  to-day  is  complete.  First,  let  us  see  what  this 
transformation  really  is.  Then  it  will  be  easy  for  us 
to  determine  the  place  which  money  holds  in  our 
literature. 


x6i 


LATELY  I  have  been  re-reading  Sainte-Beuve's  criti- 
J  cal  essays,  that  interminable  series  of  volumes,  in 
which  he  confesses  himself  at  such  great  length.  And  it 
was  during  this  reading  that  I  was  struck  with  the  pro- 
found modifications  that  have  taken  place  in  our  feelings 
about  literature.  Sainte-Beuve,  whose  intelligence  is  so 
flexible  and  so  great,  and  so  well  able  to  appreciate  mod- 
ern works,  had  nevertheless  a  tender  preference  for  those 
of  the  past.  He  expresses  a  continual  regret,  a  sort 
of  homesickness,  for  the  dead  ages,  for  the  seventeenth 
century  above  all ;  it  escapes  him,  in  a  page,  or  in  a 
phrase,  on  no  matter  what  subject.  He  acknowledges 
the  present  time,  he  flatters  himself  that  he  knows  and 
comprehends  all  its  productions ;  but  his  temperament 
carries  him  away,  and  he  goes  back  to  the  past  and 
lives  more  at  his  ease  with  his  melancholy  joys  and  mid 
his  memories  as  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  letters.  He 
was  born  two  hundred  years  too  late.  I  have  never 
understood  the  charm  of  the  literary  temperament  better, 
as  it  was  cultivated  by  old  France.  Sainte-Beuve  was 
certainly  one  of  the  last  to  feel  and  weep  with  this  old 
world,  and  its  echo  vibrates  the  more  strongly  in  him 
because  he  has  one  foot  in  each  of  the  two  epochs, 
the  past  and  the  present,  and  because  he  is  more  of 
an  actor  than  a  judge.  His  true  confessions  were 
written  in  his  hours  of  trouble,  and  they  sound  like  a 
cry  of  personal  sorrow. 

162 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       163 

Here  is  the  picture  Sainte-Beuve  draws  of  the  writer 
when  he  turns  back  to  that  past  about  which  he  dreams. 
The  writer  is  an  erudite  and  lettered  man,  who,  above 
all  else,  needs  leisure.  He  lives  in  the  depths  of  a 
library,  far  from  the  noise  of  the  street,  in  a  sweet 
companionship  with  the  Muses.  It  is  a  condition  of 
luxury,  of  spiritual  refinement,  with  just  enough  mental 
stimulus,  and  the  soft  soothing  of  one's  entire  nature. 
Literature  was  the  pastime  of  a  chosen  society,  which 
charmed  the  poet  first,  before  it  contributed  to  the 
happiness  of  a  select  circle.  No  hypothesis  of  forced 
labor,  of  prolonged  vigils,  of  work  anxiously  awaited  and 
accomplished  in  a  hurry ;  on  the  contrary,  there  was 
a  smiling  politeness  toward  inspiration,  works  were 
written  in  favorable  hours,  in  entire  ease  of  heart  and 
mind.  Men  of  the  upper  classes  were  alone  capable  of 
producing  anything  under  such  circumstances  ;  I  mean 
by  that,  rich  and  well-conditioned  men,  to  whom  a  god 
had  given  the  necessary  leisure.  And  the  idea  of  gain 
never  entered  into  this  work ;  the  writer  made  phrases 
as  the  bird  pours  forth  trills,  for  his  pleasure  and  the 
pleasure  of  others.  There  was  no  question  of  paying 
him  any  more  than  there  was  of  paying  the  nightin- 
gale. He  was  simply  fed.  They  agreed  that  money 
was  a  gross  thing  which  debased  the  dignity  of  letters ; 
at  least  there  is  no  example  presented  to  us  of  a  man 
gaining  a  fortune  by  writing  ;  and  this  being  accepted, 
the  writers  draped  themselves  in  their  poverty,  and 
for  the  necessities  of  life  looked  to  some  prince's 
charity.  Writers  were  an  ornament,  a  luxury,  some- 
thing lifted  out  of  common  life,  something  that  could 
not  be  openly  bought  and  sold  like  other  commodities ; 
the    great   ones  alone    could  pay  for  this  fantasy,  as 


1 64       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

they  paid   for   the   privilege   of  having  buffoons  and 
ballet  dancers. 

I  emphasize  particularly  the  characteristics  of  the 
literary  sense  of  that  age.  The  writer  of  those  times 
had  in  him  nothing  of  the  savant,  full  of  zeal  for  truth, 
and  finding  his  whole  pleasure  in  making  discoveries. 
He  was,  before  all  else,  a  skillful  musician  who  played 
beautiful  airs  with  the  words  and  expressions  current  in 
that  day ;  even  those  writers  who  had  some  sense  for 
human  nature  were  content  to  deliver  long  dissertations 
on  the  subject  of  man,  an  abstract,  purely  metaphysical 
man.  One  of  their  greatest  pleasures  was  to  para- 
phrase antiquity,  to  live  in  a  more  or  less  close  com- 
munion with  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  You  must  then 
picture  the  writer  as  seated  in  his  closet,  surrounded  by 
books ;  as  respectful  toward  tradition,  not  taking  a 
step  without  consulting  his  authorities;  as  wishing 
ordinarily  only  to  produce  variations  on  well-known 
subjects,  always  treating  literature  like  a  lady  of 
fashion,  who  exacted  all  kinds  of  politeness,  and  plac- 
ing, truly,  the  charm  of  the  thing  in  refining  these 
politenesses  ad  infinitum.  In  a  word,  the  writer  revels 
'in  pure  letters,  in  the  pleasure  of  some  literary  conceit, 
in  discussions  about  the  use  of  language,  in  elaborate 
painting  of  character,  feeling,  and  passions,  not  probing 
them  down  to  their  real  physiological  truth,  but  setting 
them  forth  in  tragic  tirades  and  eloquent  passages. 
There  is  an  impassable  gulf  between  the  savant  who 
experiments  and  the  writer  who  describes.  The  latter 
never  cuts  company  with  philosophical  and  religious 
dogma ;  he  is  shut  fast  in  the  domain  of  the  spirit,  even 
when  he  possesses  a  revolutionary  nature.  Literature 
is  really  a  world  apart:  the  literary  man  cultivates  a  sort 


INFLUENCE  OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       165 

of  garden  where  each  flower  has  its  own  plot,  tulips  on 
one  side  and  roses  on  the  other.  This  garden  is  formal 
but  pretty;  with  lots  of  rules  and  regulations,  yet  never- 
theless is  full  of  the  peaceful  pleasure  of  watching  the 
long  expected  flowers  bud  forth  in  their  season. 

It  was  the  salons  which  called  forth  the  literary 
instinct  and  molded  it.  Books  were  dear  and  poorly 
circulated ;  the  people  did  not  read  at  all,  and  the 
middle  class  hardly  at  all ;  they  were  far  removed  from 
that  great  current  of  reading  which  to-day  carries  all 
society  with  it.  It  was  an  exception  to  come  across 
an  impassioned  reader  devouring  all  he  could  find  on 
the  booksellers'  shelves.  And  the  general  mass  of 
readers,  what  we  call  public  opinion,  the  universal 
suffrage,  as  we  might  put  it,  that  molds  literature 
to-day,  did  not  then  exist ;  the  salons^  a  few  rare  groups 
of  chosen  people,  were  the  only  ones  to  give  a  decisive 
judgment.  These  salons  really  governed  letters.  They 
were  the  ones  who  decided  upon  the  language,  the 
choice  of  subjects,  and  the  best  manner  in  which  to 
treat  them.  They  sorted  out  the  words,  adopting  some, 
condemning  others ;  they  established  the  rules,  laid 
down  the  fashions,  and  made  men's  reputations.  From 
all  this  literature  took  a  character  such  as  I  have 
endeavored  to  point  out.  It  was  a  sort  of  witty 
conceit,  an  amiable  pastime,  a  superior  distraction 
indulged  in  by  men  of  good  company.  Picture  to 
yourself  one  of  these  salons^  which  made  the  law  in 
literary  matters.  A  woman  gathered  around  her  writers 
whose  only  thought  was  to  please  her ;  new  works  were 
read  to  a  select  few ;  there  was  a  great  deal  of  conver- 
sation, carried  on  with  all  the  decorum  and  the  polite- 
ness in  the  world.     Genius,  as  we  understand  the  word 


1 66       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

to-day,  with  its  irregular  strength,  would  naturally  be 
very  ill  at  ease  in  such  quarters,  but  simple  talent 
blossomed  forth  in  the  sweet  heat  of  a  delightful  hot- 
house. Even  in  the  first  days  of  French  culture,  when 
the  salons  were  hardly  born,  and  the  great  lords  were 
content  to  have  in  their  train  a  poet,  as  they  had  a 
chef^  the  very  conditions  under  which  letters  existed 
put  them  in  the  hands  of  a  privileged  class  whom  they 
flattered  and  whose  taste  they  had  to  accept.  This 
gave  them  all  kinds  of  amiable  qualities :  tact,  modera- 
tion, pompous  alternation,  a  showy  method  of  con- 
struction, and  brilliant  language ;  and  also  all  the 
attractions  that  you  find  in  the  society  of  well-born 
women,  those  subtle  discriminations  of  heart  and  brain, 
those  keen  discussions  upon  delicate  subjects,  lightly 
touching  upon  all  topics  without  ever  stopping  on 
any  one,  those  cozy  conversations  which  resemble 
musical  airs,  and  in  which  you  are  content  to  listen 
merely  to  the  sad  or  gay  melodies  of  the  human 
creature.  Such  was  the  nature  of  the  literary  tempera- 
ment of  past  ages. 

Naturally  the  salons  led  up  to  the  academies.  It 
was  here  that  the  literary  spirit  blossomed  forth  into 
beautiful  rhetoric.  Freed  from  its  worldly  element, 
with  no  more  women  to  humor,  it  became  grammatical 
and  wordy,  it  plunged  into  the  question  of  tradition,  of 
rules  and  formulas.  You  should  hear  Sainte-Beuve, 
this  liberal  minded  man,  talking  about  the  Academy 
with  the  importance  and  anger  of  an  honest  official 
who  has  gone  to  his  office  and  is  discontented  with  the 
conduct  and  work  of  his  colleagues  during  his  absence. 
A  great  many  writers  were  fond  of  these  ancient  seances 
where  they  disputed  about  the  use  of  different  words, 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE,       167 

those  talks  where  they  wrangled  in  the  names  of  the 
oracles  of  antiquity.  They  flung  Greek  and  Latin 
quotations  at  one  another's  heads,  and  enjoyed  the 
pleasure  of  a  common  pedantry,  in  the  midst  of  an 
extraordinary  complication  of  hates  and  jealousies,  of 
petty  battles  and  mean  triumphs.  During  two  cen- 
turies statesmen  fallen  from  power,  bilious  poets  mad 
with  vanity,  librarians,  their  heads  stuffed  with  old 
books,  went  to  the  Academy  for  solace,  enjoyed  the 
illusion  of  glory,  and  sharply  discussed  their  respec- 
tive merits,  without  ever  having  the  public  with  them. 
If  the  true  history  of  the  Academy  were  written, 
with  the  letters  in  which  the  academicians  have  con- 
fessed the  truth,  you  would  have  the  most  extraordinary 
comic  poem  about  a  group  of  men  who  had  fallen 
into  infantile  pride,  and  into  occupations  astounding 
in  their  uselessness.  Sainte-Beuve's  writings  are  very 
valuable  in  this  connection,  for  the  reason  that  he  gives 
us  some  excellent  notes  on  the  attitude  of  the  writer 
in  the  last  salons  at  the  commencement  of  this  century. 
You  see  the  writer  feeling  very  much  honored  at  being 
received  at  the  houses  of  the  great.  He  gives  them  low 
t)ows,  he  is  respectful,  and  shows  that  he  knows  his  own 
place  and  recognizes  their  superiority.  It  is  an  ac- 
ceptance of  the  social  hierarchy  at  which  he  will  smile, 
and  skeptically  analyze,  as  soon  as  his  foot  has  touched 
the  pavement  of  the  street ;  but  in  the  midst  of  it, 
among  ladies  and  hobnobbing  with  the  minister  of  to- 
day or  to-morrow,  he  thinks  he  must  bow  as  if  he  had 
still  need  of  that  protection,  as  if  he  worked  only  for 
this  class,  flattered  by  its  politeness,  captivated  by  the 
seductions  of  these  aristocratic  surroundings,  in  which 
letters  appeared  more  noble.     It  is  simply  a  remnant  of 


1 68       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE, 

court-flattery,  a  taste  for  the  grace  and  delightful  pro- 
priety of  good  society.  Immersed  in  such  reading, 
Sainte-Beuve  seems  to  forget  that  it  is  the  presence  of 
the  entire  nation  behind  him  that  gives  him  his  power 
and  his  true  celebrity. 

In  a  word,  in  the  past  centuries,  Hterature  means  the 
cultivation  of  letters,  utterly  divorced  from  any  notion 
of  scientific  inquiry.  It  is  an  idea  of  pure  letters,  taking 
the  conception  of  a  soul  utterly  separate  from  the 
body  and  superior  to  it  as  its  primary  philosophical 
basis,  and  then  starting  from  this  indisputable  dogma 
to  wrestle  in  books  dealing  solely  with  questions  of 
grammar  and  rhetoric.  As  a  result  the  literary  sense 
of  the  nation  labors  in  salons  and  learned  bodies 
toward  the  formation  of  the  language,  toward  the  cre- 
ation of  a  well-balanced  literature  which  expatiates  in 
beautiful  sentences  on  the  character  and  emotions  as 
they  were  laid  down  by  the  metaphysics  of  that  age. 
Man  and  nature  remain  in  an  abstract  condition  ;  writers 
do  not  feel  that  it  is  their  mission  to  tell  the  truth 
about  people  and  things,  but  to  depict  them  according 
to  the  conventional  method,  tending  always  toward 
the  type  so  as  to  obtain  the  greatest  possible  grandeur. 
Nowhere  do  they  descend  to  the  individual ;  not  even 
among  the  comic  poets,  who  have  written  some  master- 
pieces of  general  observation.  The  study  of  separate 
facts,  the  anatomy  of  special  cases,  the  collecting,  class- 
ifying, and  ticketing,  of  human  data  are  still  far  off. 
It  is  simply  a  question  of  amusing  an  elegant  society 
by  writing  for  it  works  in  which  could  be  found  its 
language,  its  politeness,  its  art  of  shading,  its  fine  re- 
strictions, all  its  hfe  of  half  admissions  and  common 
civilities. 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE,       169 

Certainly  such  a  literary  spirit  has  given  birth  to 
beautiful  works.  I  state  this,  I  do  not  pass  judgment 
upon  it.  All  our  great  national  literature  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and,  above  all,  of  the  seventeenth,  is 
the  product  of  this  relation  between  the  writers  and  the 
chosen  society  for  whom  they  wrote.  The  salons  and 
the  academies  were  the  cultivated  soil  in  which  our 
classical  chefs-d'ceuvre  were  inevitably  to  take  root. 
To  them  is  due  the  beautiful  arrangement  and  the 
solemn  breadth  of  Racine's  tragedy,  the  magnificent 
periods  of  Bossuet's  orations,  the  logic  and  the  genial 
good  sense  of  Boileau.  Our  glory  is  still  there,  for  the 
new  centuries  are  barely  begun ;  and  we  must  give  the 
spirit  which  has  arisen  since  the  romantic  insurrection 
time  to  gain  strength  and  amplitude.  My  aim  is  not 
to  deny  the  past ;  I  wish,  on  the  contrary,  to  define  it, 
to  show  that  it  is  the  past,  and  that  French  letters  are 
entering  upon  a  new  period,  which  it  is  well  to  disen- 
tangle clearly,  if  you  wish  to  evade  useless  regrets  and 
march  to  the  future  with  resolute  steps. 

This,  then,  is  the  old  literary  spirit.  Let  us  now 
take  up  some  historical  documents. 


II. 

FOR  a  long  time  I  have  thought  that  it  would  be 
very  interesting  to  examine  the  material  and  moral 
situation  which  writers  occupied  in  the  last  centuries. 
What  was  their  real  rank  and  social  position  ?  What 
position  did  they  hold  with  the  nobility  and  the  middle 
class?  How  did  they  live?  with  what  money,  and 
on  what  footing? 

To  make  a  complete  reply  to  these  several  questions 
would  be  a  considerable  labor,  a  work  of  great  research 
and  compilation.  It  would  be  necessary  to  gather 
together  all  the  data  that  are  possible  about  writers,  to 
penetrate  into  their  inner  life,  know  their  fortune, 
examine  their  accounts,  follow  them  in  their  daily 
cares ;  and  it  would  be  more  necessary  than  anything 
else  to  study  the  condition  of  publishers  at  that  epoch, 
to  know  what  returns  a  book  brought  to  its  author,  to 
judge  if  literary  work  was  sufficient  to  feed  a  man.  It 
is  only  thus  that  we  can  grasp  the  real  causes  of  the 
literary  spirit  of  this  vanished  society;  for  the  soil 
explains  the  plant,  and  the  existence  of  the  parasite 
writer  of  the  classical  centuries  is  to  be  found  especially 
in  the  question  of  money. 

Naturally  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  treat  the  subject 
to  its  full  extent.  I  should  need  much  more  leisure 
than  I  have  at  my  disposal.  This  can  be  nothing 
more  than  a  very  incomplete  sketch,  some  notes  which 
I  have  gathered  together  and  which  I  give  now,  to 

170 


INFL  UENCE   OF  MONE  Y  IN  LITER  A  TURE.       1 7  i 

indicate  the  great  and  interesting  work  which  there  is 
to  do.  I  do  not  even  try  to  put  order  into  these  notes; 
I  merely  transcribe  them  in  haphazard  fashion,  drawing 
from  each  the  several  reflections  which  bear  on  my 
subject. 

To  make  the  inquiry  complete  I  ought  to  go  back  to 
the  early  writers,  but  I  will  content  myself  with  a  writer 
no  further  back  than  Malherbe.  We  read  the  follow- 
ing in  Tallemant  des  Reaux,  who,  after  explaining  that 
the  king  could  not  give  the  poet  a  sufficient  pension, 
says  :  "  The  king  ordered  M.  de  Bellegarde,  then  first 
gentleman  of  the  bedchamber,  to  take  charge  of  Mal- 
herbe until  he  was  able  to  put  him  on  the  roll  of  his 
pensioners.  M.  de  Bellegarde  gave  him  a  salary  of 
5000  crowns,  with  his  board,  and  provided  him  with  a 
horse  and  lackey.  Upon  the  death  of  Henry  IV.  the 
queen,  Marie  de  Medicis,  gave  Malherbe  a  pension  of 
50CX)  crowns,  and  from  that  time  he  was  no  longer 
under  M.  de  Bellegarde's  care.  M.  Moraud,  who  was 
at  Caen,  promised  Malherbe  and  a  nobleman,  one  of 
his  friends,  who  was  also  at  Caen,  to  let  each  of 
them  have  400  francs,  for  what  I  do  not  know,  and  in 
that  did  them  a  great  favor.  He  even  invited  them  to 
dinner.  Malherbe  was  not  willing  to  go  unless  he  sent 
his  coach  for  him.  Finally  the  nobleman  persuaded 
him  to  go  on  horseback.  After  dinner  their  money 
was  paid  to  them." 

Is  not  this  a  typical  example?  The  pith  of  the 
whole  matter  seems  to  me  to  be  found  in  these  few 
lines.  A  writer  is  a  luxury  which  a  great  lord  allows 
himself.  When  the  king  has  not  enough  money,  he 
passes  the  writer  over  to  a  courtier,  praying  him  to 
feed  him  for  a  little  while,  as  he  would  hand  over  an 


172       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

expensive  beast  for  safe  keeping,  whom  he  hoped  to 
be  able  to  afford  the  distraction  of  at  a  later  date  ;  and 
in  fact,  if  death  hinders  the  king  from  gratifying  his 
caprice,  a  queen  steps  in  who  takes  charge  of  the  poet. 
Writers  were  rare  and  priceless  birds,  whom  the  great 
nobles  lent,  gave,  and  transmitted  thus  to  one  another, 
to  show  their  taste  and  to  proclaim  the  amount  of 
their  fortune.  But  what  struck  me  the  most  in  Talle- 
mant  des  Reaux  is  the  pride  which  Malherbe  main- 
tains, notwithstanding  this  position  of  parasite  which 
he  holds ;  he  wants  M.  Mourad's  money,  but  he  insists 
upon  their  sending  a  carriage  for  him  in  order  to  go  and 
get  it,  and  ends  by  being  content  with  a  horse.  Is  not 
this  a  charming  commentary  upon  the  ideas  of  the 
times?  The  present  of  a  sum  of  money  does  not  seem 
to  wound  his  feelings,  but  he  insists  upon  the  greatest 
etiquette  in  the  matter. 

Tallemant  is  filled  with  the  stories  of  pensions  and 
the  sums  of  money  given  to  authors.  He  says,  speak- 
ing of  Racan  :  "  He  lived  at  the  bidding  of  the  soldiers 
of  the  Marshal  of  EfHat."  Then,  he  says  of  Chapelain  : 
"  The  Due  de  Longueville  took  Chapelain  away  from 
M.  de  Noailles,  who  treated  him  brutally,  and  paid  him 
a  pension  of  2000  francs.  .  .  His  ode*^  to  Cardinal 
Mazarin  brought  him  a  pension  of  500  crowns.  .  .  Later 
M.  de  Longueville  raised  his  pension  100  francs."  What 
do  you  think  of  M.  de  Noailles,  who  "treated  him 
brutally "  to  such  an  extent  that  the  Due  de  Longue- 
ville profited  by  the  circumstance  to  allow  himself  the 
luxury  of  Chapelain  at  a  price  which  was  very  exorbi- 
tant for  those  days  ?  Valets  change  masters  thus  when 
their  masters  beat  them  unmercifully. 

I  will  transcribe  here  a  very  well  known  document, 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       173 

but  a  very  interesting  one,  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
"  Si^cle  de  Louis  XIV."  by  Voltaire.  It  is  an  extract 
of  a  list  of  pensions,  discovered  in  Colbert's  papers,  and 
made  out  more  than  likely  by  Chapelain.  These  pen- 
sions were  paid  by  the  king  :  "  To  Sire  Pierre  Corneille, 
first  dramatic  poet  of  the  world,  2000  francs ;  to  Sire 
Demaretz,  the  most  fertile  author  and  gifted  with  the 
most  beautiful  imagination  which  was  ever  known,  1200 
francs ;  to  Sire  Moli^re,  an  excellent  comic  poet,  iocxd 
francs ;  to  Sire  Abb^  Cotin,  orator  and  French  poet, 
1200  francs;  to  Sire  Douvrier,  savant  and  Doctor  of 
Letters,  3000  francs  ;  to  Sire  Ogier,  consummate  in  the- 
ology and  in  belles-lettres^  2500  francs;  to  Sire  Racine, 
French  poet,  800  francs ;  to  Sire  Chapelain,  the  great- 
est poet  who  ever  lived  and  possessed  of  the  soundest 
judgment,  3000  francs." 

If  the  title  of  "first  dramatic  poet  of  the  world," 
awarded  to  Corneille,  satisfies  us  still,  we  are  a  little 
surprised  at  the  present  time  to  learn  that  Demaretz 
was  gifted  with  "  the  most  beautiful  imagination  that 
was  ever  known,"*  and  that  Chapelain  inscribed  himself 
as  "  the  greatest  poet  who  ever  lived  and  possessed  of 
the  soundest  judgment."  But  the  interest  is  not  alone 
in  that ;  this  list  is  a  precious  document,  because  it 
shows  the  true  meaning  of  the  pensions  which  were 
given  to  writers.  They  were  not  only  alms  distributed 
to  the  needy ;  they  were  also  pledges  of  satisfaction, 
accorded  by  a  master  to  his  servants,  who  exerted 
themselves  to  magnify  his  glory.  Later  on  I  shall 
touch  upon  the  conditions  under  which  the  state  to-day 
comes  to  the  help  of  letters.  Formerly  these  pensions 
were  given  because  of  the  precarious  situation  in  which 
the    following   of   letters  as  a   profession   placed    the 


174       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

writers,  but  these  pensions  also  brought  with  them  a 
certain  amount  of  honor,  and  this  is  so  true  that  even 
authors  who  were  rich  humbly  petitioned  to  become 
pensioners. 

Tallemant  des  Reaux  furnishes  us  with  a  very  striking 
example  on  the  subject,  in  speaking  of  Balzac :  "  This 
man,  who  was  possessed  of  so  many  virtues,  ventured 
on  a  cowardice  to  which  he  had  no  temptation ;  in 
writing  to  the  Cardinal  Mazarin  he  signs  himself : 
*  The  most  humble,  most  obedient,  and  most  obliged 
servant  and  pensioner  of  Your  Eminence.*  "  Balzac 
was  rich,  and  yet  he  asked  for  and  obtained  a  pension 
of  500  crowns.  This  is  the  most  striking  example  of 
parasitical  literature  I  know  of. 

I  quote  Tristan's  epitaph  ;  he  died  in  1665,  and 
belonged  to  Gaston  of  Orleans : 

Ebloui  de  I'eclat  de  la  splendeur  mondaine, 

Je  me  flattais  toujours  d'une  esperance  vaine, 

Faisant  le  chien  couchant  aupres  d'un  grand  seigneur, 

Je  me  vis  toujours  pauvre,  et  tachai  de  paraitre  ; 

Je  vecus  dans  la  peine,  esperant  le  bonheur, 

Et  mourns  sur  un  coffre,  en  attendant  mon  maitre. 

Naturally  all  backs  were  not  bowed  in  such  submis- 
sion. Men  of  talent  stood  firm  and  upright;  but  they 
were  the  exception,  for,  I  repeat,  the  ideas  of  the 
period  permitted  this  guardianship,  this  state  of  depen- 
dence in  which  the  great  kept  the  writers.  The  great 
men  paid  and  the  writers  bowed.  Later,  in  Voltaire's 
time,  the  manners  were  already  changed.  Thus,  in 
Voltaire,  we  find  the  following  lines  on  Mainard,  a  for- 
gotten writer,  born  in  1582:  "He  was  one  of  those 
authors  who  complained  of  the  lack  of  fortune  attached 
to  talent.     He  failed  to  understand  that  the  success  of 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE,        1 75 

a  good  work  was  the  only  recompense  worthy  of  an 
artist ;  that  if  princes  and  ministers  wished  to  honor 
themselves  by  recompensing  this  kind  of  merit,  it  was 
more  honorable  to  await  these  honors  than  to  ask  for 
them  ;  and  that  if  a  good  writer  was  ambitious  for  a 
fortune,  he  should  make  it  himself."  This  is  very  far 
removed  from  Balzac's  singular  vanity  when  he  signed 
himself  as  "  pensioner " ;  yet  Voltaire  does  not  con- 
demn pensions,  he  only  says  that  a  writer  ought  to 
learn  to  wait  for  them. 

I  will  take  a  few  more  examples  from  Voltaire : 
"  Descartes  had  an  older  brother,  who  was  a  counselor 
in  the  parliament  of  Brittany,  who  despised  him 
greatly,  and  who  said  it  was  an  indignity  that  the 
brother  of  a  counselor  should  debase  himself  by  being 
a  mathematician."  But  here  is  a  much  more  distinct 
judgment.  He  is  speaking  of  Valincour:  "  He  made  a 
much  greater  fortune  than  he  would  have  made  had  he 
been  only  a  man  of  letters.  Letters  alone,  apart  from 
the  laborious  sagacity  which  makes  them  useful,  will 
hardly  ever  be  productive  of  anything  but  an  unhappy 
and  despised  life." 

In  the  life  of  La  Fontaine  is  also  to  be  found  some 
excellent  information.  L Amateur  d'AutographeSy  a 
journal  which  has  published  some  very  curious 
letters,  has  given  some  very  interesting  ones  of  La 
Fontaine.  In  a  letter  dated  "January  5,  1618,"  he 
thanks  his  uncle,  M.  Jannart,  then  deputy  attorney- 
general  of  the  king,  for  the  great  obligations  to  which 
he  is  under  to  him  for  the  sum  which  he  has  put  to  his 
credit ;  "  it  is  not  the  first  time  that  you  have  given  evi- 
dence of  the  good  will  which  you  bear  me."  In 
another  letter  to  the  Due  de  Bouillon's  steward  (dated 


176       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

September  i,  1666)  he  complains  "  that  he  has  not  had 
any  salary  for  two  years."  La  Fontaine  might  be 
regarded  as  the  typical  example  of  a  very  talented 
poet ;  his  works  were  successful,  and  he  lived  with  the 
great  noblemen  of  the  time,  going  from  one  to  the 
other  without  feeling  any  very  intense  desire  to  earn 
his  living  by  his  own  exertions. 

It  would  be  easy  for  me  to  continue  to  quote  exam- 
ples. Thus  I  find  in  L Amateur  d' Autographes  the 
following  documents  :  In  the  first  place,  here  is  a  letter 
from  Dacier  to  the  Due  d'Orleans,  who  was  then 
regent,  in  which  he  says:  ''For  thirty-five  years  my 
wife  has  worked  for  the  advancement  of  letters ;  and 
the  approval  with  which  V.  A.  R.  deigned  to  honor 
her  makes  us  feel  her  efforts  have  not  been  in  vain. 
The  late  king  gave  her  a  pension  of  500  francs ;  but 
she  owed  this  pension  to  the  great  prince's  pity,  and 
not  to  his  esteem  for  her."  Another  letter  is  addressed 
by  Gilbert  to  Baculard  d'Arnaud.  I  will  quote  these 
two  phrases :  "  I  am  in  need  of  a  louis ;  I  make  bold 
enough  to  ask  you  for  it.  I  do  not  doubt  but  that  you 
are  generous  enough  to  lend  it  to  me,  if  you  can." 
Then  this  is  what  Mme.  de  Genlis  wrote  to  Talleyrand 
under  date  of  July  10,  1814:  "  My  situation  is  fright- 
ful since  the  Due  d'Orleans'  departure ;  I  have  neither 
pension,  revenue,  nor  resources ;  I  have  lived  by  bor- 
rowing and  by  putting  my  things  in  pawn.  If  the  king 
gives  pensions  to  men  of  letters,  it  seems  to  me  that  I 
am  more  entitled  to  one  than  many  others ;  no  matter 
how  modest  it  may  be,  it  will  be  sufficient,  even  if  it  is 
but  1200  francs." 

This  picture  of  the  general  misery  of  writers  of  for- 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.        177 

mer  times  is  very  incomplete ;  but  I  can  easily  see 
what  researches  might  be  made,  and  I  know  what  im- 
portant data  would  be  obtained.  Then  it  would  be 
necessary,  on  the  other  hand,  to  consider  the  resources 
which  writers  were  able  to  obtain  from  their  works,  to 
expose  in  what  way  and  for  how  much  a  work  would 
sell.  I  frankly  confess  I  have  not  pushed  my  investi- 
gations as  far  as  that ;  the  inquiry  would  be  a  difficult 
one,  and  would  take  a  great  deal  of  time.  We  do  not 
know  very  much  about  the  terms  made  between  pub- 
lishers and  authors,  nor  the  exact  amounts  which  their 
works  brought  in  to  them  at  that  time.  To  gain  a 
thorough  knowledge  on  the  subject  it  might  be  well  to 
read  the  memoirs  and  letters  of  that  period  carefully  ; 
here  and  there  we  might  get  glimpses  of  the  truth. 
But  one  thing  I  do  know,  and  that  is  that  a  book  or  a 
play  brought  in  very  little  money  to  its  author  com- 
pared with  the  figures  of  to-day.  There  are  no  exam- 
ples of  men  of  genius  being  enriched  by  their  works. 
Corneille's  absolute  poverty  has  been  contested ;  but, 
in  any  case,  he  died  in  very  straitened  circumstances. 
Racine  lived  to  the  time  of  his  death  as  a  bourgeois. 
Moli^re  barely  earned  his  living,  although  he  was  an 
actor  as  well  as  a  comic  poet.  Dramatic  authors  made 
hardly  any  money  until  Beaumarchais*  time.  As  to 
novelists,  poets,  and  historians,  they  were  the  pub- 
lishers' prey.  Baculard  d'Arnaud,  whom  I  mentioned 
further  back,  died  poor,  after  having  earned  for  his 
publishers  more  than  a  million  francs. 

This,  then,  was  the  true  situation  of  writers  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  a  situation  which 
can  easily  be  established  by  more  positive  proof  still. 


fjS      INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

To  sum  up  all  that  I  have  said  :  Literary  labors  could 
not  feed  the  author,  who  thus  became  a  rare  bird, 
whom  the  king  and  the  great  lords  were  alone  able  to 
indulge  in  the  luxury  of.  A  contract  was  entered  into 
between  the  protector  and  the  prot^g^ ;  the  protector 
clothed,  fed,  and  lodged,  or  else  he  contented  himself 
with  pensioning  the  protege ;  who  in  return  sang  his 
praises,  dedicated  his  works  to  him,  in  order  to  pass 
down  to  posterity  his  name  and  the  recognition  of  his 
benefits.  This  entered  into  the  role  which  the  old 
regime  assigned  to  the  nobility;  in  exchange  for  its 
privileges  its  duty  was  to  help  those  who  were  obe- 
dient to  them,  and  letters  were  but  one  of  their  depend- 
ents, like  the  soil  and  the  common  people  themselves. 
A  whole  pyramid  of  conventional  distinctions  ruled 
with  absolute  sovereignty,  fostered  by  worldly  respect. 
If  the  king  or  the  nobles  condescended  to  a  familiarity 
with  a  writer,  it  was  but  a  passing  condescension,  for  it 
never  would  have  entered  anyone's  head  to  place  King 
Louis  XIV.,  for  instance,  and  the  actor  Moli^re  on  a 
footing  of  perfect  equality.  Genius  counted  for  noth- 
ing but  part  and  parcel  of  the  pomp  belonging  to  the 
reign.  And  besides,  as  we  have  just  seen,  the  pension 
granted  to  a  writer  was  not  only  a  help,  which  would 
assure  him  leisure  in  which  to  write  fine  works,  but  it 
was  an  honor  much  sought  after,  even  by  writers  born 
with  fortunes.  It  was  a  fine  thing  to  belong  to  a 
powerful  nobleman ;  it  gave  one  a  position  in  the 
world.  All  the  intellectual  life  moved  in  the  narrow 
circle  of  high  society,  in  the  salons  and  the  academies. 
And  as  a  result  the  literary  world  was,  as  I  have  defined 
it,  devoted  to  leisure  and  elegant  language,  careful  of 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       179 

all  the  proprieties  ;  a  lovely,  yet  pompous  plant,  sun- 
ning itself  in  the  ladies'  smiles,  but  confined  within 
narrow  limits  by  academical  disputes,  and  subsisting 
mainly  upon  rule  and  tradition  ;  above  all,  it  had  an 
instinctive  hatred  of  science  as  of  an  enemy  who  would 
one  day  break  all  rules  and  introduce  new  formulas 
in  triumph. 


III. 

LET  us  now  examine  the  material  condition  of  the 
'  writer,  such  as  it  is  in  our  days.  The  Revolution 
has  come,  sweeping  away  all  privileges ;  like  a  clap  of 
thunder  it  has  carried  away  the  old  distinctions  and  the 
old  respect.  In  the  new  state  of  things  the  writer  is 
among  those  citizens  whose  condition  has  been  radically 
changed.  Under  Napoleon,  Louis  XVIII.,  and  Charles 
X.  things  seemed  once  more  about  to  resume  their 
former  aspect ;  but  underneath  these  external  appear- 
ances all  things  were  being  slowly  transformed ;  the 
ways  of  living  were  no  longer  the  same,  and  every  day 
the  new  literary  spirit  was  molded  by  the  material 
conditions  brought  into  letters  by  the  young  society. 
Every  social  movement  brings  with  it  an  intellectual 
movement. 

In  the  first  place,  the  people  have  been  educated,  and 
thousands  of  readers  created.  The  newspapers  pene- 
trate everywhere,  the  country  people  begin  to  buy 
books.  In  half  a  century  books,  which  were  formerly 
an  objet  de  luxe,  have  become  something  within  every- 
body's reach.  Formerly  they  cost  a  great  deal ;  to-day 
the  most  humble  purses  can  purchase  a  small  library. 
These  are  the  decisive  facts ;  as  soon  as  people  know 
how  to  read,  and  as  soon  as  they  can  read  cheaply,  the 
publishers'  business  increases  tenfold,  and  the  writer 
finds  a  means  of  living  by  the  work  of  his  pen.  For 
this  reason  he  no  longer  seeks  the  protection  of  the 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.        i8i 

great ;  parasiticism  disappears  from  among  us ;  an 
author  is  a  workman  like  any  other,  and  gains  his  Hve- 
lihood  by  his  work. 

This  is  not  all.  Nobility  has  been  pierced  to  the 
heart.  It  has  abandoned  its  great  train  of  retainers ;  it 
has  lowered  its  head,  little  by  little,  under  the  universal 
leveling.  It  has  sustained  a  slow  but  inevitable  fall, 
which  no  longer  permits  it  to  have  its  poets  and  its 
historians,  even  though  the  latter  should  forever  be 
reduced  to  the  necessity  of  begging  a  bed  and  food. 
Manners  have  changed ;  who  could  imagine  a  palace  in 
the  Faubourg  St.  Germain  indulging  the  luxury  of  a 
La  Fontaine  to-day  ?  Thus  not  only  can  a  writer  earn 
his  living  by  addressing  his  work  to  the  public,  but  he 
would  search  in  vain  to-day  for  a  grand  seigneur  who 
would  pay  him,  by  pensioning  him,  for  dedicating  that 
work  to  him. 

Let  us  see  now  what  influence  money  has  in  our 
literature.  The  newspapers,  more  than  anything  else, 
have  opened  out  an  immense  field.  To  run  a  news- 
paper is  an  enormous  business,  and  it  gives  the  means 
of  earning  a  living  to  a  great  number  of  people.  Young 
writers,  when  they  first  start  out,  can  in  this  way  find 
immediate  work  which  pays  them  well.  Critics,  cele- 
brated novelists,  without  counting  the  regular  news- 
paper men,  some  of  whom  occupy  an  important 
position,  earn  considerable  sums  in  journalistic  work. 
These  high  prices  were  not  given  from  the  very  begin- 
ning ;  the  returns  were  very  small  at  first,  but  have 
grown  larger  little  by  little,  and  are  growing  still. 
Twenty  years  ago  a  writer  who  could  earn  200  francs  a 
month  on  a  newspaper  considered  himself  very  for- 
tunate;    to-day  the   same  man  can  easily  earn   1000 


1 82       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

francs  and  over.  Literature  tends  to  become  a  very 
expensive  merchandise,  provided  it  is  signed  by  a  well- 
known  name.  The  newspapers  cannot  give  an  opening 
to  all  the  beginners  from  the  country,  but  they  really 
support  a  great  many  young  people,  who  have  only 
themselves  to  blame  if  they  do  not  cut  loose  some  day 
in  order  to  write  good  books.  Some  people  urge  that 
even  if  the  newspapers  do  come  to  the  aid  of  these 
young  writers,  that,  on  the  other  hand,  they  weaken 
them,  and  render  them  incapable  of  great  works.  This 
is  a  question  which  needs  looking  into.  Just  now  I 
simply  mention  the  resources  offered  in  our  century  to 
writers  who  wish  to  live  by  their  pen. 

It  has  become  equally  easy  to  publish  a  book,  and 
upon  a  thoroughly  fair  basis.  It  is  childish  nowadays 
to  complain  of  the  difficulty  of  approaching  a  publisher. 
They  publish  too  much  ;  the  number  of  volumes  which 
appear  each  year  in  France  amounts  to  thousands. 
When  you  look  at  the  trash,  the  mediocre  books  which 
lumber  up  the  shelves,  one  asks  one's  self  what  books 
the  publishers  could  possibly  have  refused.  As  to  the 
contracts,  they  are  actually  drawn  up  in  a  very  honest 
and  reciprocal  spirit.  It  is  not  so  very  long  ago  that 
publishing  was  a  regular  game  of  chance.  A  publisher 
bought  the  sole  rights  to  a  book  for  a  certain  sum  dur- 
ing ten  years ;  then  he  tried  to  get  his  money  back, 
and  to  get  back  as  much  as  possible  by  putting  out  the 
book  to  the  best  possible  advantage.  As  a  result  there 
was  almost  always  a  victim  somewhere ;  either  the 
work  obtained  great  success  and  the  author  cried  out 
from  the  housetops  that  he  had  been  robbed,  or  the 
work  did  not  sell  at  all,  and  the  publisher  said  that  he 
was  ruined  by  the  lucubrations  of  a  fool.    This  explains 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.        183 

the  state  of  open  warfare  in  which  the  pubHshers  and 
authors  lived.  You  should  read  Balzac's  correspond- 
ence, you  should  hear  the  veterans  in  letters  talk 
to-day,  if  you  would  get  an  idea  of  the  quarrels  and  the 
proceedings  which  followed  the  productions  of  certain 
works.  Now  these  ways  are  changed.  If  some  pub- 
lishers continue  to  follow  the  old  method,  the  greatest 
number  pay  a  certain  fixed  royalty ;  if  this  royalty  is 
50  centimes,  an  edition  of  one  thousand  copies  will 
bring  500  francs  to  the  author ;  and  it  will  mean  500 
francs  as  many  times  as  the  publishers  put  out  a  new 
edition.  It  can  easily  be  seen  that  all  recrimination 
becomes  impossible  under  these  circumstances ;  there 
is  no  longer  any  place  for  recrimination,  as  the  author 
gains  more  or  less  according  to  the  book's  success,  and 
the  publisher  is  certain  to  pay  no  more  to  the  author 
than  a  royalty  proportionate  to  the  sums  which  are 
coming  to  him.  I  must  add,  though,  that  the  book, 
unless  very  much  the  fashion,  will  never  enrich  the 
author.  It  is  considered  a  good  sale  when  three  or 
four  thousand  copies  are  sold  ;  this  would  make  2000 
francs  if  we  compute  the  royalty  at  50  centimes  a  copy, 
this  being  a  big  royalty — the  usual  royalty  is  generally 
35  or  40  centimes.  You  can  easily  see  if  the  work  has 
taken  one  year  to  write,  and  even  if  it  is  so  fortunate 
as  at  once  to  find  a  publisher,  that  2000  francs  is  a  very 
modest  sum  upon  which  to  live  in  our  days. 

On  the  stage  the  gain  is  formidable,  on  the  contrary. 
In  the  same  way  as  with  a  book,  you  obtain  a  percent- 
age on  the  receipts,  only  the  receipts  are  enormous 
here,  for  the  reason  that  a  great  number  of  people  who 
would  not  pay  three  francs  for  a  book  will  not 
hesitate  to  pay  seven  or  eight  for  an  orchestra  chair ; 


1 84      INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

hence  it  follows  that  a  drama  or  a  comedy  brings 
much  more  than  a  novel.  Thus,  for  example,  sup- 
pose a  play  has  a  run  of  a  hundred  nights,  which  is 
the  usual  number  to-day  denoting  success  ;  the  average 
receipts  per  night  can  be  placed  at  4000  francs,  which 
brings  into  the  box  office  400,000  francs,  and  to  the 
author  a  sum  of  40,000  francs,  if  the  royalties  are 
ten  per  cent,  of  the  profits.  Now  to  earn  the  same 
sum  by  publishing  a  novel  it  would  be  necessary,  put- 
ting the  royalty  at  50  centimes  a  copy,  that  80,000 
copies  should  be  struck  off,  an  output  so  extraordinary 
that  I  can  only  think  of  four  or  five  examples  during 
the  last  fifty  years.  And  I  am  not  speaking  of  its 
production  throughout  the  rest  of  the  country,  of  its 
reproduction  in  foreign  countries,  or  of  the  revivals  of 
the  play.  It  is  but  a  hackneyed  truth  to  repeat  that 
the  stage  brings  in  much  more  than  the  novel ;  a  large 
number  of  men  live  by  it,  while  you  could  easily  count 
the  number  of  authors  who  live  upon  the  money  their 
books  bring  them  in. 

I  wish  to  spend  a  moment  on  this  question  of  money 
as  it  presents  itself  to  the  young  aspirant  setting  out 
for  Paris.  Let  us  suppose  that  a  young  man  arrives 
almost  without  resources,  or  perhaps  with  a  small 
sum  of  money  which  will  keep  him  in  bread  for  a  little 
while.  Want  soon  pushes  him  into  journalism.  This, 
at  least,  brings  him  in  his  bread,  and  he  ends  by  devot- 
ing all  his  energies  to  this  pursuit.  If  he  is  clever  or 
simply  persevering  he  will  find  a  corner,  will  sell  a  few 
articles,  will  make  a  place  for  himself,  which  will  bring 
him  in  200  or  300  francs  a  month.  He  cannot  very 
well  starve  on  that.  Some  cry  out  against  journalism ; 
they  accuse  it  of  perverting  literary  youth,  of  warping 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       185 

talents.  I  have  never  been  able  to  listen  to  these 
complaints  without  smiling.  Journalism  kills  those 
who  should  be  killed,  that  is  all.  It  is  certain  that  the 
money  to  be  made  in  newspapers  has  taken  many- 
young  men  from  their  counting  houses  and  their  work- 
shops who  might  but  for  that  be  selling  cloth  or 
making  candles  all  their  lives ;  they  were  not  born 
writers,  they  follow  the  trade  of  a  journalist  as  they 
would  follow  any  other ;  and  that  injures  no  one.  But 
without  taking  into  consideration  that  some  men  have 
the  true  newspaper  instinct,  a  special  ability  for  this 
kind  of  work,  for  this  daily  battle,  let  any  point  me 
out  a  born  writer  who  has  lost  his  talent  by  earning  his 
bread  on  a  newspaper  during  the  difficult  hours  of  the 
start.  I  am  certain,  on  the  contrary,  that  they  gained, 
while  thus  engaged,  more  energy,  more  manliness,  a 
more  sorrowful,  but  much  more  penetrating,  knowledge 
of  the  modern  world.  I  have  already  expressed,  else- 
where, this  idea,  and  I  shall  perhaps  develop  it  some 
day.  In  the  meantime,  let  us  go  back  to  our  beginner 
who  earns  money  by  working  on  the  newspapers ; 
without  doubt  the  cold  shoulders  are  numerous,  the 
bread  is  hard  to  eat  sometimes,  without  mentioning 
the  fact  that  any  hour  you  may  lose  the  position. 
The  struggle  is  entered  upon,  however ;  and  if  the 
beginner  holds  the  reins  well,  if  he  is  strong,  he  will 
write  a  book  or  a  play  outside  of  his  daily  work  ;  he 
will  manage  to  try  his  literary  fortune.  The  book 
appears,  the  play  is  produced  ;  it  is  a  step  forward. 
The  battle  continues,  volumes  succeed  each  other,  play 
follows  play,  and  all  this  without  any  very  startling 
success.  At  last  the  writer  succeeds  in  freeing  himself 
from  journalism.     He  is  rich  by  his  writings  or  from 


1 86       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

his  stage  work;  he  is  his  own  master.  Such  is  the 
story  of  nearly  all  the  well-known  writers  of  to-day. 
Some  few,  however,  have  been  able  to  escape  the  bitter 
struggle  of  journalism,  either  because  they  had  money 
in  the  beginning  or  because  their  earnings  from  the 
stage  or  their  books  satisfied  their  wants  at  once. 

In  the  last  fifty  years  large  fortunes  have  been 
realized  in  letters.  A  few  examples  will  be  sufficient. 
Since  the  generation  of  1830  the  profits  have  been 
considerable.  Eugene  Sue,  after  the  popular  success 
of  his  "  Myst^res  de  Paris,"  sold  his  novels  for  a  very 
high  figure.  George  Sand,  who  in  early  life  was  in 
very  straitened  circumstances,  and  reduced  to  painting 
simple  subjects  on  wood,  ended  by  attaining,  if  not  a 
fortune,  at  least  a  very  comfortable  income.  But  the 
one  who  made  the  most  money  was  certainly  Alex- 
ander Dumas,  who  made  and  ran  through  millions  in 
his  extraordinary  existence  of  superhuman  work  and 
mad  revels.  Then  we  must  not  forget  Victor  Hugo, 
who  married  a  poor  girl  and  had  a  very  bitter  struggle 
until  the  success  of  "  Feuilles  d'Automne  "  and  "  Notre 
Dame  de  Paris  "  was  the  commencement  of  that  tri- 
umphant life  of  honor  and  riches. 

At  the  present  time  it  is  the  dramatic  writers  espe- 
cially who  become  wealthy.  First,  there  is  M.  Alexander 
Dumas,  filsy  who  is  as  prudent  and  sharp  as  his  father 
was  prodigal  and  intemperate.  M.  Victorien  Sardou, 
starting  from  desperate  poverty,  is  now  living  comfort- 
ably in  his  Chateau  de  Marly,  on  one  of  the  most 
adorable  hillsides  of  the  Seine.  I  could  multiply  ex- 
amples, but  these  are  sufficient  to  show  how  to-day 
letters  often  bring  fortunes  to  writers. 

But  I  have  not  spoken  of  Balzac  yet.     We  must 


INFLUENCE  OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       187 

study  the  wonderful  case  of  Balzac  if  we  want  to  treat 
this  question  of  money  in  literature  to  its  fullest  extent. 
Balzac  was  a  true  workman,  who  turned  out  books  to 
clear  his  name  from  stain.  Overwhelmed  with  debts, 
ruined  by  unlucky  enterprises,  he  took  up  his  pen 
again  as  the  only  tool  he  knew  how  to  use,  and  which 
could  save  him.  It  was  not  only  his  daily  bread  that 
Balzac  asked  of  his  books  ;  he  demanded  that  they 
should  make  good  the  losses  sustained  by  him  in  trade. 
The  battle  lasted  a  long  time ;  Balzac  did  not  gain  a 
fortune,  but  he  paid  his  debts,  which  was  much  better. 
How  far  removed  we  are  from  our  friend  La  Fontaine, 
dreaming  under  the  trees,  seated  in  the  evenings  at  the 
table  of  some  great  lord,  paying  for  his  dinner  by  a 
fable !  Balzac  put  his  own  nature  into  his  "  C^sar 
Birotteau."  He  struggled  against  bankruptcy  with  a 
superhuman  will ;  he  did  not  seek  in  letters  glory 
alone,  and  he  found  dignity  and  honor. 

It  is  curious  to  study  the  question  of  pensions 
to-day.  The  state,  that  impersonal  being,  has  substi- 
tuted itself  for  the  king,  who  was  supposed  to  help 
letters  by  means  of  the  money  in  his  pockets  Then, 
further,  pensions  are  no  longer  given  as  an  honorary 
title,  and  as  a  guarantee  of  great  admiration  ;  they  go 
to  the  needy,  to  the  writers  whose  old  age  is  unhappy; 
and  oftentimes  they  are  hidden  under  the  gift  of  a 
sinecure  to  the  pensioner,  a  fictitious  employment 
which  shields  his  dignity.  In  fact,  pensions  are  given 
discreetly  and  secretly ;  they  certainly  denote  no  fall, 
but  they  indicate  a  certain  condition  of  poverty  which 
is  best  hidden.  What  happened  to  Lamartine  when 
ruin  came  upon  him  perfectly  characterizes  the  public's 
actual  sentiments  on  the  subject.     To  those  who  be- 


1 88       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

came  indignant  at  the  want  of  money  in  which  France 
left  the  great  poet,  to  those  who  endeavored  to  get  up 
a  great  national  subscription  for  him,  it  was  replied 
that  the  country  was  not  bound  to  pay  the  debts  of  all 
extravagant  writers  whose  open  hands  had  squandered 
millions.  It  was  a  very  hard  reply,  but  it  was  made  in 
the  spirit  of  our  new  society ;  it  arose  from  that  spirit 
of  equality  which  says  that  every  producer  should  be 
the  artisan  of  his  own  fortune.  France,  as  Lamartine's 
friends  said,  is  rich  enough  to  pay  for  its  glory ;  but 
between  a  writer  who  has  shown  himself  free  and 
worthy  by  his  works,  and  a  writer  who  begs  for  help 
after  he  has  lived  in  utter  disregard  of  his  talents  and 
his  debts,  public  opinion  does  not  hesitate ;  she  is  kind 
to  the  former,  severe  to  the  latter.  It  is  not  to-day 
that  Balzac — I  speak  of  the  Balzac  of  the  seventeenth 
century — would  soil  his  honor  by  touching  a  pensioii 
from  the  government.  This  is  the  great  step  which 
has  been  taken. 

However,  the  pension  is  a  very  good  thing  in  con- 
nection with  scientific  men  and  scholars.  There  are, 
in  fact,  researches  and  experiments  which  demand  a 
great  deal  of  time,  and  of  which  the  final  gain  is  almost 
nothing.  The  state  intervenes,  and  it  is  perfectly  right 
that  it  should  ;  for  remark,  the  question  always  puts 
itself  in  the  same  manner:  either  the  writer  makes  his 
living,  and  cannot  be  supported  without  shame,  or  his 
work  is  not  sufficient  for  his  needs,  and  then  he  at 
least  has  an  excuse  for  accepting  assistance  for  his 
wants.  It  remains,  however,  an  open  question  if  the 
shoemakers  and  tailors,  for  example,  might  not  have 
good  cause  for  complaint ;  they  too  often  end  in 
misery,  after  thirty  years  of  hard  work,  and  yet  do  not 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.        189 

think  they  have  any  right  to  say  to  the  country :  **  I 
can  no  longer  earn  my  bread  ;  give  me  some  !  "  Then 
there  are  also  subsidies,  orders,  and  honors,  of  which  I 
wish  to  say  a  word.  These  honors  cost  the  state 
nothing;  it  is  an  easy  way  in  which  to  please  peo- 
ple, and  I  only  speak  of  them  for  the  purpose  of  once 
more  showing  the  spirit  of  equality.  Formerly  the 
cross  never  shone  on  a  writer's  breast,  to-day  there  are 
some  great  dignitaries  in  letters.  As  to  orders  and 
subsidies,  these  are  rarely  to  be  found  in  letters,  out- 
side of  the  theater;  and  there,  moreover,  they  are 
given  as  the  testimony  of  approval  to  the  whole  per- 
formance, and  not  directly  to  the  work  of  the  writer.  A 
great  many  people,  young  people  principally,  complain 
and  accuse  the  government  of  not  having  done  for 
letters  what  it  has  done  for  painting  and  sculpture. 
These  are  very  dangerous  protestations;  the  greatest 
honor  which  our  literature  enjoys  is  that  of  being  inde- 
pendent. I  repeat  what  I  have  already  said  elsewhere  : 
"  All  that  the  government  can  do  for  us  is  to  give  us 
our  absolute  liberty."  At  this  day  the  highest  idea 
we  can  form  of  a  writer  is  that  of  a  man  free  from  all 
pledges,  bound  to  flatter  no  one,  who  owes  his  life,  his 
talents,  his  glory,  solely  to  his  own  efforts,  and  who 
is/eady  to  place  all  these  at  his  country's  service  with- 
out expectation  of  any  return. 


IV. 

THIS,  then,  in  our  days,  is  the  position  money  holds 
in  literature.  It  will  be  easy  now  to  characterize 
our  feelings  about  literature,  and  to  compare  them  with 
the  spirit  of  the  last  centuries. 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  no  more  salons.  I  know 
that  ambitious  women,  the  blue  stockings  of  our 
democracy,  pique  themselves  still  upon  receiving  writ- 
ers. But  their  salons  are  merely  great  meeting  places 
into  which  the  guests  rush,  mid  a  perfect  babel  of 
noise  and  hurry.  There  is  no  longer  any  gathering 
together  of  congenial  souls,  such  as  the  women  of 
other  days  called  around  them  ;  there  is  no  longer  any 
disinterested  love  of  letters,  no  longer  any  holding  of 
conversations  as  one  does  a  concert.  All  you  have  is 
a  conglomeration  of  desires,  a  great  mass  of  people 
eager  for  power,  and  rushing  to  the  houses  of  women 
whom  they  consider  powerful  in  any  way  whatsoever. 
Politics  is  there,  shrieking,  devouring,  reducing  letters 
to  the  role  of  a  bleating  lamb,  the  lamb  of  the  ideal, 
washed  and  decked  out  in  blue  ribbons.  There  is 
always  the  same  insipidness ;  they  play  at  feasting  on 
literature,  while  in  reality  the  human  animal  under- 
neath crops  up,  desirous  of  enjoyment  and  his  share 
of  the  good  things  of  the  world.  It  is  thus  an  inevi- 
table consequence  that  these  salons,  true  centers  of 
political  agitation,  throw  themselves  into  a  violent 
opposition  against  the  literary  movement  of  the  period 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       I9I 

when  it  makes  the  pretension  of  marching  at  the  head 
of  revolutionary  and  progressive  ideas ;  sweet  verses 
are  read  there  ;  they  swoon  at  the  names  of  Rome  and 
Athens ;  they  affect  a  passion  for  antiquity ;  they  are 
lost  in  admiration  after  the  manner  of  an  undergov- 
erness  who  has  read  her  classics,  as  others  have  learned 
to  play  on  the  piano  ;  and  naturally  they  deny  the 
living  literature  of  the  actual  hour ;  they  would  gladly 
persecute  it,  without  daring  to  do  so.  All  this  counts 
for  nothing;  we  have  here  only  a  lot  of  gossiping 
women. 

The  disappearance  of  these  salons  is  a  very  important 
matter,  as  it  indicates  the  diffusion  of  taste,  the  growing 
enlargement  of  the  public.  From  the  moment  that 
opinion  is  not  the  work  of  a  few  chosen  groups  or  of 
certain  coteries,  each  one  pushing  to  the  front  its  par- 
ticular idol,  it  comes  to  be  the  great  mass  of  readers 
who  judge  and  award  success.  There  is  an  evident 
tie  between  the  rapidly  increasing  number  of  readers 
and  the  disappearance  of  the  salons ;  the  latter  have 
sunk  and  disappeared,  because  they  could  no  longer 
lord  it  over  the  former,  who  have  become  legion  and 
refuse  to  obey.  The  few  literary  reunions  which 
exist  still,  certain  little  groups,  especially  in  the  aca- 
demic world,  have  been  swamped  and  have  lost  all 
their  power;  frightened  at  the  ever-increasing  mass  of 
books,  they  are  obliged  to  take  refuge  in  a  past,  for- 
ever dead.  It  is  the  dying  agony  of  the  old  literary 
spirit,  which  Sainte-Beuve  realized. 

Add  that  the  Academy  has  equally  ceased  to  exist ; 
I  mean  as  a  power  and  an  influence  in  letters.  The 
conferring  of  a  fauteuil  is  still  sharply  contested,  the 
same  as  that  of  a  cross  of  honor,  by  the  innate  vanity 


192       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

we  possess.  But  the  Academy  no  longer  makes  our 
laws;  it  has  even  lost  all  authority  over  our  language. 
The  literary  prizes  which  it  distributes  no  longer  carry 
any  weight  with  the  public  ;  as  they  ordinarily  go  to 
the  mediocrities,  they  have  no  meaning,  they  indicate 
and  encourage  no  movement.  The  romantic  -move- 
ment was  born  in  spite  of  the  Academy,  which  later 
was  forced  to  accept  it ;  to-day  the  same  thing  is  in  a 
fair  way  to  happen  concerning  the  naturalistic  evolu- 
tion ;  so  that  the  Academy  appears  like  an  obstacle 
placed  in  the  path  of  our  literature,  which  each  new 
generation  has  to  kick  out  of  its  way ;  after  which  the 
Academy  gives  in.  Not  only  does  it  aid  us  in  nothing, 
but  it  impedes  us,  and  it  is  vain  enough  and  weak 
enough  to  open  its  arms  to  those  whom  formerly  it 
wished  to  devour.  Such  an  institution  can  be  of  no 
account  in  the  literary  movement  of  a  people  ;  it  has 
neither  significance,  nor  action,  nor  result  of  any  kind. 
Its  only  role,  which  certain  persons  still  recognize,  is 
the  position  of  guardian  of  the  language  ;  and  this 
role  even  has  escaped  it ;  M.  Littre's  dictionary,  so 
learned  and  so  great,  is  more  consulted  to-day  than 
the  Academy's  dictionary ;  without  taking  into  consid- 
eration that  since  1830  the  greatest  writers  have  turned 
the  latter  topsy-turvy  in  an  outburst  of  splendid  inde- 
pendence ;  creating  words  and  expressions,  exhuming 
condemned  terms,  bringing  new  words  into  use,  enrich- 
ing the  language  in  each  new  work  so  well  that  the 
Academy's  dictionary  bids  fair  to  become  a  curious 
archaeological  monument.  I  repeat  that  its  role  is 
almost  null  in  our  literature  ;  it  remains  at  best  simply 
a  sort  of  halo. 

Thus  the  great  social  movement,  starting  from  the 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       193 

eighteenth  century,  has  had  in  ours  its  Hterary  expres- 
sion. New  opportunities  of  earning  his  bread  have  been 
opened  to  the  writer,  and  at  one  bound  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  artificial  distinctions  has  been  demolished, 
intelligence  has  become  a  badge  of  nobility,  and  work 
a  dignity.  At  the  same  time,  by  a  logical  consequence, 
as  the  influence  of  the  salons  and  the  Academy  has 
disappeared,  the  coming  of  democracy  in  letters  is 
seen ;  in  other  words,  the  little  coteries  are  lost  in  the 
great  public,  a  book  is  born  in  the  crowd  and  for  the 
crowd.  Finally  science  penetrates  into  literature,  the 
scientific  inquiry  extends  even  to  the  work  of  the 
poets,  and  this  above  all  other  things  characterizes  the 
actual  evolution,  this  naturalistic  evolution  which  is 
sweeping  us  along. 

Well,  I  say  we  must  resolutely  put  ourselves  face  to 
face  with  the  situation,  and  accept  it  with  courage. 
Men  lament,  crying  out  that  the  literary  spirit  is  dying 
out ;  that  is  not  true,  it  is  being  transformed.  I  hope 
to  have  proved  it.  And  do  you  wish  to  know  what 
has  made  us  worthy  and  respected  to-day  ?  It  is  money. 
People  are  foolish  who  cry  out  against  money,  which 
is  a  considerable  social  force.  Only  the  very  young 
writers  will  repeat  the  common  cry  about  the  degrada- 
tion of  letters,  the  sacrifice  to  the  golden  calf ;  they 
are  ignorant  yet,  they  cannot  understand  the  justice 
and  the  honesty  of  money.  Let  them  compare  for  one 
moment  the  situation  of  a  writer  under  Louis  XIV. 
and  that  of  a  writer  of  our  own  days.  Where  is  the 
full  and  complete  assertion  of  personality  ?  Where  is 
the  true  dignity?  Where  is  the  greatest  amount  of 
work,  the  broadest  and  most  respected  existence  ? 
Evidently  on  the  side  of  the  actual  writer.     And  this 


194      INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

dignity,  this  respect,  this  breadth,  this  assertion  of  his 
personality  and  his  thoughts,  to  what  is  it  due  ?  To 
money,  without  a  doubt.  It  is  money,  it  is  the  legiti- 
mate gain  realized  from  our  works,  which  has  deliv- 
ered us  from  all  humiliating  patronage ;  which  has 
made  of  the  old-time  juggler,  the  ancient  court  fool,  a 
free  citizen,  a  man  who  looks  up  only  to  himself.  With 
money  to  back  him,  he  has  dared  to  say  everything ; 
he  has  carried  his  habit  of  examination  into  all  quarters  ; 
to  the  king,  even  to  God,  without  fear  of  losing  his 
bread.  Money  has  emancipated  the  writer ;  money  has 
created  modern  letters. 

It  makes  me  angry  to  read  in  the  journals  of  young 
poets  that  a  writer  should  simply  aim  at  glory.  Yes, 
that  is  understood,  it  is  puerile  to  say  it.  But  we  must 
live.  If  you  are  not  born  with  a  fortune,  what  will 
you  do?  Will  you  regret  the  times  when  they 
cudgeled  Voltaire,  when  Racine  died  of  a  sulk  from 
Louis  XIV.,  when  literature  was  the  hireling  of  a  brutal 
and  imbecile  nobility  ?  What  !  You  push  your  want 
of  gratitude  toward  our  great  epoch  to  the  verge  of 
not  understanding  it,  accusing  it  of  a  mercenary  spirit, 
when  this  means,  above  all,  the  right  to  work  and  to 
live  !  If  you  cannot  live  by  your  verses,  by  your  first 
essays,  do  something  else  ;  enter  politics  and  wait  until 
the  public  comes  to  you.  The  state  owes  you  nothing. 
It  is  not  very  praiseworthy  to  cry  for  a  supported  liter- 
ature. Fight,  eat  potatoes  or  trufifles,  break  stones  in 
the  daytime  and  write  chefs-d'oeuvre  at  night.  Only 
understand  this  well :  if  you  have  talent,  if  you  have 
force,  you  will  reach  glory  and  fortune.  This  is  the  law 
of  life  and  of  our  age.  Why  childishly  revile  our  age 
when  it  certainly  will  remain  great  among  the  greatest  ? 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       1 95 

I  know  all  that  can  be  said  if  you  look  at  the  ques- 
tion from  certain  unfortunate  sides,  such  as  that  a 
mercenary  spirit  arises  from  this  new  appetite  for  read- 
ing, from  the  ever-increasing  number  of  newspapers. 
But  in  what  way  does  this  hurt  true  writers  ?  They 
earn  less,  but  what  matter  so  long  as  they  eat  ?  Re- 
mark, besides,  that  if  a  Ponson  du  Terrail  amasses  a 
fortune,  he  works  enormously,  much  more  than  do 
the  sonnet  makers  who  revile  him.  Doubtless,  from 
a  literary  point  of  view,  the  merit  is  nil ;  but  the  great 
labor  of  the  newspaper  writer  explains  his  gains,  while, 
in  addition,  his  work  enriches  the  dailies.  We  do  not 
treat  directly  with  the  public ;  there  are  between  it  and 
us,  middle-men,  publishers,  business  managers — a  whole 
little  world,  who  live  by  our  works,  who  make  millions 
by  our  work ;  we  do  not  wish  to  share  our  profits,  and 
yet  we  splutter  out  against  money,  under  the  pretekt 
that  money  is  ignoble  !  These  are  unwholesome  ideas, 
empty  and  blameworthy  declarations,  to  which  it  is 
high  time  to  take  objection.  Those  who  speak  thus 
are  either  very  feeble  beginners,  who  are  suffering  from 
not  being  able  to  live  by  the  work  of  their  pens,  or 
writers  who  have  never  known  want,  and  who  treat 
literature  as  a  mistress,  whom  they  always  recompense 
with  costly  suppers. 

What  I  reiterate  is  that  money  brings  forth  great 
works.  Imagine,  then,  in  our  democratic  times  a 
young  man  thrown  on  the  streets  of  Paris  without  a 
cent  in  his  pocket.  I  have  shown  you,  a  little  while 
ago,  this  young  man,  living  by  newspaper  work,  faring 
rather  badly  than  well,  succeeding  finally,  by  a  deter- 
mined effort,  in  writing  books  outside  of  his  daily  work. 
Ten  years  of  his  life  pass  by  in  this  terrible  struggle. 


196       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

Then  success  comes  to  him  ;  he  has  not  only  earned 
glory,  he  has  made  his  fortune  ;  he  has  reached  a  haven, 
having  saved  his  children  from  poverty,  sometimes 
having  succeeded  in  paying  the  debts  left  by  his  family. 
Henceforth  he  is  free,  he  speaks  his  thoughts  aloud. 
Is  it  not  a  splendid  picture  ?  Money  here  shows  its 
greatness. 

The  question  has  always  been  very  badly  put.  We 
should  start  from  the  point  that  all  work  is  worthy  of 
payment.  In  composing  a  book,  naturally,  the  true 
writer  does  not  seat  himself  at  his  table  each  morning 
with  the  idea  of  earning  the  largest  possible  sum ;  but 
the  book  finished,  the  publisher  is  there,  who  makes 
money  with  this  merchandise  which  has  been  given 
to  him  to  sell,  and  nothing  is  more  natural  than  that 
the  writer  should  accept  the  royalty  fixed  by  his 
contract.  I  cannot  understand  this  great  burst  of 
indignation  against  money.  The  business  part  is  on 
one  side,  literature  is  on  the  other. 

All  great  evolutions  must  have  their  bad  side.  Inevi- 
tably speculators  spring  up.  I  have  spoken  of  the 
feuilletonists  who  throng  the  sidewalks  in  such  crowds. 
According  to  my  way  of  thinking  they  earn  their 
money  very  legitimately,  because  they  work  hard,  and 
some  with  a  great  deal  of  spirit ;  but  it  is  certain  that 
literature  is  not  here  in  question.  The  beginners  are 
wrong  to  cry  out  against  the  newspaper  writers,  for 
they  do  not  in  reality  encroach  on  any  literary  path  ; 
they  have  created  a  special  public,  who  only  read 
newspaper  literature  ;  they  address  themselves  to  these 
new  readers,  who  are  illiterate  and  incapable  of  appreci- 
ating a  beautiful  work.  In  fact,  I  think  we  ought 
rather  to  thank  them,  for  they  polish  up  this  unculti- 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       197 

vated  soil,  these  penny  journals  which  penetrate  to  the 
backwoods.  Besides,  look  at  politics  :  there  is  no 
movement  there  without  an  excess ;  each  step  in  a 
society  is  marked  by  struggles  and  deep  upheaving. 
In  the  same  way  it  was  inevitable  that  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  writer,  that  intelligence  when  it  reached 
triumphant  prosperity  and  had  become  an  aristocrat, 
should  bring  with"  it  regrettable  facts.  This  is  the  bad 
side  of  things.  Men  traffic  dishonestly  with  their  pens, 
a  mass  of  folly  looks  out  at  us  from  the  front  page  of 
the  newspaper,  we  are  inundated  with  silly  books.  But 
what  matters  it ;  all  this  is  part  of  that  natural  vicious- 
ness  which  shows  forth  in  the  hours  of  a  social  crisis. 
The  progress  which  is  accomplished  on  high,  the  efforts 
of  great  talent  bringing  forth  from  pur  daily  battles  a 
new  beauty,  life  in  its  truth  and  its  intensity — you 
should  look  only  at  these  things. 

A  much  graver  consequence,  and  one  which  has 
always  worried  me,  is  the  continuous  effort  to  which  the 
writer  of  to-day  is  condemned.  We  are  no  longer  at 
the  time  when  a  sonnet,  read  in  a  salon,  made  a  writer's 
reputation,  and  led  him  to  the  Academy.  The  works  of 
Boileau,  of  La  Bruyere,  of  La  Fontaine,  are  contained 
in  one  or  two  volumes.  To-day  we  must  produce  and 
continue  producing.  It  is  the  work  of  a  laborer  who 
must  earn  his  bread  and  cannot  retire  until  he  has  made 
his  fortune.  Besides,  if  the  writer  stops,  the  public  for- 
gets him  ;  he  is  forced  to  pile  volume  upon  volume,  as 
a  cabinetmaker  adds  table  to  table.  Look  at  Balzac. 
That  is  terrible,  for  the  question  presents  itself  imme- 
diately :  How  will  posterity  treat  a  work  of  such  mag- 
nitude as  the  "  Comedie  Humaine  "  ?  It  seems  incred- 
ible that  it  can  retain  it  all,  and  yet  what  part  can  it 


igS       TMFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

reject  ?  Remark  that  the  books  bequeathed  by  the 
centuries  are  all  relatively  short.  Man's  memory  halts 
before  a  bulk.  Besides,  it  hardly  retains  the  books 
called  classical ;  by  classical  I  mean  those  which  are 
imposed  upon  us  in  our  youth,  when  our  intelligence 
cannot  defend  itself.  Then,  again,  I  am  always  uneasy 
when  I  think  of  our  feverish  rate  of  production.  If 
each  writer  has  really  only  one  book  in  him,  we  are 
doing  a  very  dangerous  thing  for  our  own  glory  in  re- 
peating this  book  indefinitely  under  the  lash  of  new 
necessities.  This,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  is  the  only 
disturbing  element  in  the  actual  condition  of  things. 
Then  again,  we  must  never  judge  the  future  by  the 
past.  Balzac  will  evidently  stand  in  a  different  position 
from  Boileau. 

I  now  come  to  the  scientific  breeze  which  is  sweeping 
more  and  more  over  our  literature.  The  question  of 
money  is  simply  one  result  in  the  transformation  which 
the  literary  spirit  has  undergone  in  our  days,  for  the 
primary  cause  of  this  transformation  comes  from  the 
apphcation  of  scientific  methods  to  letters,  from  the  use 
of  those  tools  which  the  writer  has  borrowed  from  the 
savant  in  order  to  take  up  again  with  him  the  analysis 
of  nature  and  of  man.  The  actual  battle  is  waged  on 
this  soil :  on  one  side  the  rhetoricians,  the  grammarians, 
the  pure  men  of  letters,  who  intend  to  continue  tra- 
dition ;  on  the  other,  the  anatomist,  the  analysist,  the 
experts  in  the  sciences  of  observation  and  experiment, 
whose  object  is  to  depict  anew  the  world  and  humanity, 
studying  them  in  their  natural  mechanism,  and  extend- 
ing their  works  so  as  to  embrace  the  greatest  amount 
of  truth.  These  latter,  by  their  triumph  since  the 
beginning    of    the    century,   have    molded    the    new 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE,       199 

literary  spirit.  They  are  not  a  school,  as  I  have  said  a 
hundred  times ;  they  are  a  social  evolution,  whose 
phases  are  easily  stated.  The  abyss  which  separates 
Balzac  from  a  writer  of  any  kind  in  the  seventeenth 
.century  immediately  presents  itself  before  our  eyes. 
Let  us  admit  that  Racine  formerly  may  have  read 
"  Phedre,"  which  is  his  most  audacious  tragedy,  in  a 
salon ;  the  fine  ladies  listened  to  it,  the  academicians 
approved  of  it,  all  those  present  were  delighted  with 
the  pompousness  of  the  verses,  with  the  correctness  of 
the  tirades,  with  the  propriety  of  the  sentiments  and 
language.  The  work  is  a  fine  rhetorical  and  logical 
composition,  made  about  abstract  and  metaphysical 
beings,  by  an  author  imbued  with  the  philosophical 
opinions  of  his  day.  Now  let  us  take  "  Cousine  Bette  " 
and  attempt  to  read  that  aloud  in  a  salon  or  in  an 
academy.  The  reading  would  appear  improper;  the 
fine  ladies  would  be  scandalized  ;  and  this  only  happens 
because  Balzac  has  written  a  book  of  experiment  and 
observation  on  human  beings,  not  as  a  logician  or  a 
maker  of  beautiful  phrases,  but  as  an  analyzer,  who  is 
loboring  at  the  scientific  quest  of  his  age.  This  com- 
parison shows  how  large  is  the  abyss.  When  Sainte- 
Beuve  sent  forth  his  despairing  cry,  *'  Oh,  physiolo- 
gists, I  find  you  everywhere ! "  he  pounded  the  knell  of 
the  old-time  literary  spirit,  he  felt  that  the  reign  of 
literary  men  of  old  times  was  over. 

That  is  the  situation.  I  sum  it  all  up  by  saying 
that  our  epoch  is  a  grand  one,  and  that  it  is  childish  to 
lament  before  the  century  which  is  opening  out  to  us. 
As  it  advances  humanity  leaves  only  ruins  behind  it ; 
why  always  turn  back  and  weep  over  the  ground  which 
we  have  left  behind  us,  wasted  and  strewn  with  debris  ? 


200       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

Doubtless  the  past  centuries  had  their  Hterary  great- 
ness, but  it  is  a  poor  aim  to  try  to  keep  us  immovable 
in  this  greatness,  under  the  pretext  that  there  could  be 
no  other.  A  literature  is  but  the  expression  of  a  social 
condition.  To-day  our  democratic  society  is  beginning 
to  have  its  literary  expression,  and  it  is  magnificent 
and  complete.  We  must  accept  it  without  regret  or 
childish  repinings ;  we  must  recognize  the  power,  the 
justice,  and  the  dignity  of  money;  we  must  submit  to 
the  new  spirit  which  broadens  the  domain  of  letters  by 
means  of  science,  which  above  all  grammar  and  rhet- 
oric, above  all  philosophy  and  religion,  strives  to  attain 
to  the  beauty  of  truth. 


V. 

As  a  result  of  and  as  a  conclusion  to  the  pa^es  which 
.  I  have  just  written,  I  will  finish  by  briefly  touching 
upon  what  we  call  "  the  question  of  the  young  writers." 
,Our  beginners  make  unreasonable  demands,  as  is 
explicable  and  pardonable,  for  youth  is  by  nature  in 
haste  to  succeed.  I  know  a  great  many  boys  of  twenty 
who,  upon  the  refusal  of  their  second  play  by  the 
directors  of  a  theater,  or  at  the  return  of  their  third 
article  sent  to  the  newspapers,  hold  forth  on  the 
decadence  of  letters,  and  demand  in  a  loud  voice  to  be 
protected.  Our  young  litterateurs  dream  of  something 
like  this :  A  special  publisher,  empowered  to  edit  and 
publish  all  the  books  which  beginners  present  to  him  ;  a 
theater  which,  thanks  to  a  generous  subsidy,  will  present 
all  the  plays  which  the  beginner  sends  to  the  director. 
And  in  all  this  recriminations  come  in ;  they  remark 
that  the  government  gives  much  more  money  to 
music  than  to  literature ;  they  point  out  painters 
covered  with  crosses  and  orders,  who  live  like  pam- 
pered children,  under  the  protection  of  the  govern- 
ment. Let  us  for  a  moment  look  into  the  wishes  of 
these  young  people. 

The  idea  of  a  general  encouragement  makes  me 
smile.  There  must  always  be  some  sort  of  selection  ;  a 
committee  or  delegation  will  be  appointed  to  examine 
the  manuscripts ;  the  young  writers  whose  books  are 
rejected  will  set  up  a  cry  of  partiality  on  the  part  of 


202       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

the  examiners,  and  will  accuse  the  state  of  doing 
nothing  for  them  and  of  trying  to  suppress  them. 
Moreover,  they  would  not  be  far  wrong ;  subsidies  in 
any  case  benefit  mediocrities ;  a  cross  never  goes  to 
an  unhampered  and  original  talent.  This  system  of 
encouragement  has  not  been  applied  to  books ;  in  fact, 
there  does  not  exist  a  publisher  who  receives  one  or 
two  hundred  thousand  francs  from  the  government  as 
a  set-off  for  agreeing  to  publish  ten  or  fifteen  volumes  by 
young  authors  during  the  year.  But  in  the  theater  the 
trial  has  been  made  a  long  time ;  the  Odeon,  for  example, 
is  open  to  dramatic  beginners.  And  I  would  like  these 
people  who  cry  out  for  such  encouragement  to  make  a 
study  of  the  talented  authors  whose  pieces  were  first 
played  at  the  Odeon.  I  am  certain  that  they  are 
relatively  few,  while  the  list  of  poor  and  already  for- 
gotten ones  must  be  formidable.  I  quote  this  simply 
to  come  to  this  axiom :  protection  in  literature  only 
leads  to  mediocrity. 

Sometimes  young  authors,  and,  above  all,  dramatic 
authors,  have  written  to  me  as  follows :  "  Do  you  not 
believe  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  unknown  talent?" 
Naturally,  until  talent  has  shown  itself  it  cannot  be 
known ;  but  what  I  believe  and  what  is  true  is  this, 
that  any  great  talent  ends  by  showing  itself  and  becom- 
ing known.  This  is  the  whole  point.  Genius  does  not 
need  aid  in  being  brought  forth ;  it  brings  itself  forth. 
Every  year  in  the  Salon,  that  bazaar  of  artistic  fabrica- 
tions, we  see  pictures  by  pupils,  studies  by  scholars, 
perfectly  insignificant  in  themselves,  and  which  are 
there  only  for  encouragement  and  by  tolerance ;  but 
that  does  not  matter;  that  does  not  count  and  can 
never  count ;   it  is  only  that  the  great  wrong  is  com- 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       203 

mitted  of  occupying  a  place  in  vain.  Therefore,  why 
should  they  make  such  a  display  of  useless  things  in 
literature  by  the  help  of  a  subsidy  ?  The  state  owes 
nothing  to  young  writers ;  it  is  not  sufficient  to  have 
written  a  few  pages  to  find  an  excuse  for  posing  as  a 
martyr  if  no  one  prints  them  and  no  one  plays  them  ; 
a  shoemaker  who  has  made  his  first  pair  of  shoes  does 
not  look  to  the  government  to  find  a  market  for  them. 
It  is  the  worker  who  should  force  his  work  on  the  pub- 
lic. And  if  he  has  not  this  power  he  is  nobody ;  he 
remains  unknown  by  his  own  fault,  and  justly. 

The  weak  ones  in  literature  deserve  no  pity.  Why, 
being  weak,  have  they  the  ambition  to  wish  to  be 
strong  ?  Never  was  the  cry,  "  Woe  to  the  vanquished  !  " 
more  applicable.  Nobody  obliges  a  young  man  to 
write ;  when  once  he  has  taken  up  his  pen,  he  must 
accept  the  consequences  of  the  battle ;  and  so  much 
the  worse  for  him  if  he  is  overthrown  by  the  first 
shock,  and  if  a  whole  generation  passes  over  his  body. 
Lamentations  in  such  a  case  are  childish,  and  besides, 
they  remedy  nothing.  The  weak  succumb  in  spite  of 
protection;  the  strong  reach  their  goal  in  spite  of 
obstacles  ;  and  the  whole  moral  of  the  affair  is  just  there. 

I  know  very  well  that  if  we  keep  to  the  particular, 
there  are  examples  of  writers  of  very  great  mediocrity 
of  whom  subsidies  and  protections  have  made  fashion- 
able authors.  In  what  has  France  need  of  mediocre 
writers?  If  beginners  are  encouraged  it  is  evidently  in 
the  hopes  of  finding  a  man  of  genius  among  them. 
Books  and  plays  are  not  objects  of  regular  consump- 
tion, as  are  hats  and  shoes,  for  example.  Such  con- 
sumption, if  you  like,  has  place,  it  is  true,  in  our 
libraries  and  in  our  theaters.      But  this  concerns  only 


204       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

inferior  works,  done  away  with  immediately,  destined 
to  satisfy  our  appetites  for  the  time  being.  I  do  not 
wish  to  consider  for  a  moment  the  greater  or  less 
mediocrity  with  which  we  might  be  overwhelmed  if 
the  state  intervened  to  put  these  books  on  the  market. 
Why  not  at  once  open  a  class  in  the  Museum  of  Arts 
and  Sciences?  Why  not  instruct  young  men  how  to 
write  books  according  to  the  most  approved  formula, 
and  then  have  them  compose  each  summer  the  number 
of  novels  and  comedies  which  Paris  will  need  as  a  pas- 
time during  the  gloomy  winter  hours?  No,  in  all  this 
genius  alone  is  the  thing.  There  is  no  excuse  for 
encouragements  unless  it  be  well  understood  they  are 
intended  to  facilitate  the  rise  of  men  of  superior  genius 
who  are  bewildered  and  lost  in  the  crowd. 

From  this  moment  the  question  simplifies  itself. 
All  you  have  to  do  is  to  let  things  take  their  course, 
for  no  one  can  give  another  talent,  and  talent  carries 
with  itself  the  necessary  power  for  its  own  complete 
development.  Look  at  these  facts.  Take  a  group  of 
young  writers,  twenty,  thirty,  fifty  of  them,  and  follow 
them  through  their  life.  At  the  start  all  set  out 
together,  on  the  same  footing,  with  an  equal  faith,  an 
equal  ambition.  Then  very  soon  distances  are  estab- 
lished ;  some  seem  to  run  ahead,  while  others  appear 
to  be  glued  to  their  places.  But  judgment  must  not 
be  pronounced  yet.  Finally  the  result  is  shown ;  the 
commonplace  ones,  sustained,  pushed  ahead,  praised, 
still  remain  commonplace,  notwithstanding  their  first 
success ;  the  weak  ones  have  completely  disappeared. 
As  to  the  strong,  they  have  struggled  for  ten  years,  for 
fifteen,  perhaps,  in  the  midst  of  hatred  and  envy,  but 
they  triumph  in  the  end,  they  rise  and  shine  in  the  first 


INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE.       205 

rank.  It  is  the  same  old  story.  And  it  would  be  very 
unfortunate  to  try  and  spare  the  strong  those  hard 
years  of  novitiate,  those  first  battles  in  which  they  have 
shed  their  first  blood.  So  much  the  better  if  they 
suffer,  if  they  despair,  if  they  sorrow.  The  imbecility 
of  the  crowd  and  the  rage  of  their  rivals  end  by  giving 
them  genius. 

Then,  from  my  standpoint,  this  anxiety  about  young 
writers  is  misplaced.  It  is  the  way  commonly  that 
you  delude  the  unfortunate  hopes  of  the  feeble.  As  I 
have  already  said,  at  no  time  have  the  doors  of  pub- 
lishers and  managers  been  more  widely  open ;  every- 
thing is  played,  everything  is  printed ;  and  much  bet- 
ter for  those  who  are  forced  to  wait,  for  they  ripen. 
The  worst  of  misfortunes  for  a  beginner  is  to  reach 
success  too  quickly.  It  must  be  understood  that 
behind  a  solid  reputation  there  is  twenty  years  of  effort 
and  work.  When  a  young  man  who  has  written  half  a 
dozen  sonnets  envies  a  well-known  writer,  he  forgets  that 
that  writer  may  be  deteriorating  as  the  result  of  his  fame. 

For  a  long  time  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  appear 
interested  in  young  writers.  Lecturers  burst  into  effu- 
sions ;  chroniclers  petition  the  state  to  remember  the 
beginners,  and  they  end  by  thinking  seriously  of  a 
model  library.  Well,  all  that  is  hollow.  These  people 
flattered  the  youths,  and  nothing  more,  with  a  more  or 
less  selfish  object.  Some  were  trying  to  make  theat- 
rical capital ;  others  were  improving  their  reputation  as 
sympathetic  men ;  still  others  wished  to  make  believe 
that  they  enjoyed  the  admiration  of  the  younger  gen- 
eration, and  held  the  future  within  their  grasp.  I  will- 
ingly admit  that  there  are  a  number  of  naive  people 
simple   enough   to  believe  that   the  greatness  of  our 


2o6       INFLUENCE   OF  MONEY  IN  LITERATURE. 

literature  lies  in  the  solution  of  this  pretended  question 
of  the  young  writers.  I,  who  like  to  tell  brutal  truth, 
and  who  put  in  my  vote  for  freedom,  I  will  simply  say 
to  the  beginners  in  conclusion : 

**  Work ;  it  all  lies  in  that.  Count  on  no  one  but 
yourself.  Say  to  yourself  that  if  you  have  talent  your 
talent  will  open  the  most  tightly  closed  doors,  and  that 
it  will  put  you  as  high  as  you  merit  to  go.  And,  above 
all  things,  refuse  benefits  from  the  government ;  never 
ask  protection  from  the  state ;  you  will  leave  your  man- 
hood behind  you  if  you  do.  The  great  law  of  life  is 
to  struggle.  Nobody  owes  you  anything.  You  will 
triumph  necessarily  if  you  are  a  power,  and  if  you  suc- 
cumb do  not  complain,  for  your  defeat  is  just.  Then 
respect  money;  do  not  fall  into  the  childish  fashion  of 
crying  out,  with  the  poets,  against  it ;  money  is  our 
courage  and  our  liberty.  We  writers,  who  need  to  be 
free  in  order  to  say  what  we  think,  money  makes  us 
the  intellectual  leaders  of  the  century — the  only  possi- 
ble aristocracy.  Accept  your  epoch  as  one  of  the 
greatest  in  the  history  of  humanity ;  firmly  beheve  in 
the  future,  without  stopping  to  look  at  the  inevitable 
consequences,  the  invasion  of  journalism,  the  money- 
making  spirit  of  the  baser  literature.  Lastly,  do  not 
mourn  for  the  old  literary  spirit,  as  it  was  the  expres- 
sion of  a  society  now  dead.  Another  spirit  is  spring- 
ing out  of  the  new  society,  a  spirit  which  broadens 
daily  in  its  search  for  and  in  its  assertion  of  the  truth. 
Let  the  naturalistic  movement  pursue  its  own  ways; 
geniuses  will  rise  up  and  complete  the  work.  You  who 
are  starting  on  your  career  to-day.  do  not  struggle 
against  the  social  and  literary  evolution,  for  the  geniuses 
of  the  twentieth  century  are  among  you." 


THE  NOVEL. 


THE    NOVEL 


THE   REALITY. 

THE  greatest  praise  that  coul4^be  formerly  given  to 
a  novelist  was  to  say  that  "he  had  imagination." 
To-day  this  praise  would  be  looked  upon  almost  as  a 
criticism.  This  only  goes  to  show  that  all  the  condi- 
tions of  the  novel  have  changed.  Imagination  is  no 
longer  the  predominating  quality  of  the  novelist. 

Alexander  Dumas  and  Eugene  Sue  were  gifted  with 
imagination.  In  "  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  "  Victor  Hugo 
imagined  characters  and  a  story  of  the  most  intense 
interest ;  in  "  Mauprat  "  George  Sand  knew  how  to 
impassion  a  whole  generation  by  the  imaginary  loves 
of  her  heroes.  But  nobody  has  ever  thought  of  grant- 
ing imagination  to  Balzac  and  Stendhal.  Their  won- 
derful faculties  of  observation  and  analysis  have  been 
spoken  of ;  they  are  great  because  they  have  depicted 
their  epoch,  and  not  because  they  invented  stories. 
These  are  the  men  who  lead  this  evolution ;  it  is  dating 
from  their  works  that  imagination  no  longer  counts 
in  the  novel.  Look  at  our  great  contemporaneous 
writers,  Gustave  Flaubert,  Edmond  and  Jules  de  Gon- 
court,  Alphonse  Daudet:  their  talent  does  not  come 
from  what  they  have  imagined,  but  from  the  manner 
in  which  they  show  forth  nature  in  its  intensity. 

I  insist  upon  this  fall  of  the  imagination,  because  in    ^ 
it  I  see  the  characteristic  of  the  modern  novel.     While 


I 


210  THE  NOVEL. 

the  novel  was  a  recreation  for  the  mind,  an  amusement, 
from  which  was  asked  only  animation  and  vivacity,  it  is 
easily  understood  that  the  important  thing  was  to  show 
an  abundance  of  invention  before  anything  else.  Even 
when  the  historical  novel  and  the  novel  with  a  purpose 
appeared,  even  then  it  was  still  imagination  which 
reigned  omnipresent,  either  in  calling  up  vanished 
times  or  in  the  form  of  arguments,  which  characters, 
formed  according  to  the  need  of  the  author,  expounded. 
With  the  naturalistic  novel  and  the  novel  of  observa- 
tion and  analysis,  the  conditions  change  at  once.  The 
novelist  invents,  indeed,  still :  he  invents  a  plan,  a 
drama ;  only  it  is  a  scrap  of  a  drama,  the  first  story  he 
comes  across  and  which  daily  life  furnishes  him  with 
always.  Then  in  the  arrangement  of  the  work  this 
[invention  is  only  of  very  slight  importance.  The  facts 
I  cire  there  only  as  the  logical  results  of  the  characters. 
The  great  thing  is  to  set  up  living  creatures,  playing 
before  the  readers  the  human  comedy  in  the  most 
natural  manner  possible.  All  the  efforts  of  the  writer 
tend  to  hide  the  imaginary  under  the  real. 

One  could  write  an  interesting  paper  on  the  subject 
of  how  our  great  novelists  of  to-day  work.  They  base 
nearly  all  their  works  on  profuse  notes.  When  they 
have  studied  with  scrupulous  care  the  ground  over 
which  they  are  to  walk,  when  they  have  gotten  infor- 
mation from  all  the  possible  sources,  and  when  they 
hold  in  their  hands  the  manifold  data  of  which  they 
have  need,  then  only  do  they  decide  to  sit  down  and 
write.  The  plan  of  the  work  is  brought  to  them  by  the 
I  data  themselves,  because  the  facts  always  classify  them- 
1  selves  logically,  this  one  before  that  one.  Inevitably 
the  work  takes  shape  ;   the  story  builds  itself  up  from 


THE  NOVEL.  2il 

all  the  observations  gathered  together,  from  all  the 
notes  taken,  one  leading  to  the  other,  through  the  link- 
ing of  the  lives  of  the  characters,  and  the  climax  is 
nothing  more  than  a  natural  and  inevitable  con- 
sequence. You  can  easily  see,  in  this  work,  how  little 
part  imagination  has  in  it  all.  We  are  very  far  re- 
removed,  for  example,  from  George  Sand,  who,  they 
say,  put  herself  before  a  mass  of  white  paper,  and, 
starting  out  with  the  first  idea,  went  on  and  on  without 
stopping,  composing  in  a  steady  stream,  relying  solely 
on  her  imagination,  which  brought  her  as  many  pages 
as  she  needed  to  complete  a  volume. 

Suppose  that  one  of  our  naturalistic  novelists  wishes 
to  write  a  novel  on  theatrical  life.  He  sets  out  with 
this  general  idea,  without  having  as  yet  a  single  fact  or 
a  single  character.  His  first  care  is  to  gather  together 
in  his  notes  all  that  he  knows  of  this  world  which  he 
wishes  to  depict.  He  has  known  such  and  such  an 
actor,  he  has  witnessed  such  and  such  a  play.  Here 
are  data  already,  the  best,  for  they  have  ripened  within 
himself.  Then  he  will  set  about  the  business,  he  will 
get  the  men  who  are  the  best  informed  on  the  subject 
talking,  he  will  collect  their  expressions,  their  stories, 
and  their  portraits.  That  is  not  all ;  he  then  turns 
to  written  documents,  reading  up  all  that  he  thinks 
will  be  of  the  slightest  service  to  him.  Finally  he 
visits  the  places,  lives  a  few  days  in  the  theater,  so  as 
to  gain  a  perfect  knowledge  of  all  its  recesses ;  he 
passes  some  evenings  in  an  actress*  rooms,  steeping 
himself  as  much  as  possible  in  the  surrounding  atmos- 
phere. And,  once  his  data  are  complete,  his  novel, 
as  I  have  said,  makes  itself.  The  novelist  needs  but  to 
distribute  his  facts  logically.    From  what  he  has  learned, 


212  THE  NOVEL. 

the  plot  of  his  drama,  the  story  of  which  he  has  need  as 
a  general  frame  for  his  facts,  will  shape  itself.  The 
interest  no  longer  lies  in  the  strangeness  of  the  story  ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  more  commonplace  and  genera^ 
it  is  the  more  typical  it  becomes.  Make  your  real 
characters  move  in  real  surroundings.  To  give  your 
reader  a  scrap  of  human  life,  that  is  the  whole  purpose 
of  the  naturalistic  novel. 

Since  imagination  is  no  longer  the  ruHng  quality  of 
the  novelist,  what,  then,  is  to  replace  it  ?  There  must 
always  be  a  ruling  quality.  To-day  the  ruling  charac- 
teristic of  the  novelist  is  the  sense  of  reality.  And 
this  is  to  what  I  am  coming. 

The  sense  of  reality  is  to  feel  nature  and  to  be  able 
to  picture  her  as  she  is.  It  seems  at  first  that,  as  all 
the  world  have  two  eyes  to  see  with,  nothing  ought  to 
be  more  common  than  the  sense  of  reality.  However, 
nothing  seems  to  be  more  rare.  Painters  know  and  real- 
ize this  better  than  anyone  else.  Put  certain  painters 
face  to  face  with  nature  and  they  will  see  her  in  the  strang- 
est manner  in  the  world.  Each  will  perceive  her  under 
a  dominant  colore  one  will  dress  her  out  in  yellow, 
another  in  violet,  and  a  third  in  green.  As  to  shape,  the 
same  phenomena  will  be  produced  ;  some  will  round  off 
objects,  others  will  multiply  the  angles.  Each  eye  has 
a  particular  way  of  seeing.  Then,-  again,  there  are 
eyes  which  see  nothing  at  all.  There  is  doubtless  some 
lesion,  the  nerve  connecting  them  with  the  brain  has 
become  paralyzed  in  some  way  that  science  has  not 
been  able  to  determine  as  yet.  One  thing  is  certain, 
that  it  is  no  use  for  them  to  look  at  the  life  throbbing 
around,  as  they  will  never  be  able  to  reproduce  a  scene 
from  it  correctly. 


THE   NOVEL.  213 

As  I  do  not  wish  to  name  any  living  novelist,  it  makes 
my  demonstration  a  little  difficult.  Examples  would 
make  the  point  clearer.  But  each  one  can  see  that  cer- 
tain novelists  remain  provincial,  even  after  a  twenty 
years'  residence  in  Paris.  They  excel  in  pictures  of 
their  own  country,  but  as  soon  as  they  touch  a  Parisian 
scene,  they  make  a  nice  mess  of  it,  and  never  succeed 
in  giving  a  correct  impression  of  surroundings  in 
which,  however,  they  have  lived  for  years.  Here  is 
one  example  of  a  decided  lack  of  the  sense  of  reality. 
Doubtless  the  impressions  of  childhood  have  been  the 
most  vivid  ;  the  eye  has  retained  the  pictures  which  it 
was  first  impressed  with,  then  paralysis  developed — it 
is  no  use  for  the  eye  to  look  at  Paris;  it  sees  it  not,  it 
will  never  see  it. 

The  most  frequent  case,  however,  is  that  of  complete 
paralysis.  How  many  novelists  think  they  see  nature 
and  only  see  her  through  so  many  distorted  mediums. 
They  persuade  themselves  that  they  have  put  every- 
thing in  a  picture,  that  the  work  is  definite  and  com- 
plete. This  is  of  a  piece  with  the  conviction  with 
which  they  have  piled  error  upon  error  in  colors  and 
forms.  Their  nature  is  a  monstrosity  that  they  have 
dwarfed  or  enlarged  in  trying  carefully  to  finish  off  the 
painting.  Notwithstanding  their  efforts,  everything  is 
touched  up  with  false  tints,  everything  is  topsy-turvy. 
They  might  perhaps  be  able  to  write  epic  poems,  but 
they  will  never  be  able  to  produce  a  true  work,  because 
the  lesion  of  their  eyes  prevents  it,  and  because,  when 
you  have  not  the  sense  of  reality,  you  can  never 
acquire  it. 

I  know  some  charming  story-tellers,  some  writers  of 
adorable  fantasies,  poets  in  prose,  whose  works  I  admire 


214  THE  NOVEL. 

very  much.  These  do  not  attempt  to  write  novels,  and 
their  books  are  exquisite  apart  from  the  truth.  The 
sense  of  reality  does  not  become  absolutely  necessary 
except  when  one  attempts  pictures  of  life.  Then,  with 
the  ideas  we  have  to-day,  nothing  can  replace  it,  neither 
an  impassioned  style,  nor  a  vigor  of  touch,  nor  the 
most  meritorious  attempts.  You  want  to  paint  life  ;  in 
the  first  place,  see  what  it  is,  and  then  give  it  its  exact 
reproduction.  If  the  reproduction  is  unshapely,  if  the 
pictures  are  out  of  plumb,  if  the  work  runs  to  carica- 
ture, be  it  sublime  or  simply  vulgar,  it  is  a  stillborn 
work  doomed  to  rapid  oblivion.  It  is  not  firmly 
founded  on  the  truth — it  has  no  reason  to  be. 

This  sense  of  reality  seems  to  me  very  easy  to  detect 
in  a  writer.  For  myself,  it  is  the  touchstone  which 
decides  all  my  judgments.  When  I  have  read  a  novel 
I  condemn  it  if  the  author  appears  to  me  to  be  want- 
ing in  the  sense  of  reality.  Let  the  scene  be  laid  in  a 
ditch,  or  in  the  stars,  below  or  above,  it  is  equally 
indifferent  to  me.  Truth  has  a  sound  about  it  which  I 
think  you  can  never  mistake.  The  phrases,  the  lines, 
the  pages,  the  entire  book  should  ring  with  the  truth. 
They  will  tell  you  that  you  need  very  delicate  ears ; 
you  need  a  true  ear,  and  nothing  else.  And  the  public 
itself,  that  cannot  very  well  boast  of  a  great  delicacy 
of  sense,  clearly  hears  the  works  which  ring  with  truth  • 
it  turns  more  and  more  toward  these,  while  it  soon 
becomes  silent  about  the  others,  about  the  false  works, 
which  ring  with  error. 

In  the  same  way  that  they  formerly  said  of  a  novel- 
ist, "  He  has  imagination,"  I  demand  that  they  should 
say  to-day,  "  He  has  a  sense  of  reality."     This  will  be 


THE  NOVEL.  215 

grander  and  more  just  praise.  The  ability  to  see  is  less 
common  even  than  creative  power. 

To  make  myself  better  understood  I  must  return  to 
Balzac  and  Stendhal.  Both  of  them  are  our  masters. 
But  I  must  confess  that  I  do  not  accept  their  works 
with  the  devotion  of  the  faithful  who  believe  without 
questioning.  I  find  them  truly  great  and  superior 
only  in  the  passages  in  which  they  have  the  sense  of 
reality. 

I  know  nothing  more  surprising  in  "  Le  Rouge  et  le 
Noir"  than  the  analysis  of  the  love  oi  Julien  and  Mme. 
de  R^nal.  You  must  bear  in  mind  the  epoch  in  which 
the  novel  was  written;  it  was  the  very  height  of 
romanticism,  and  heroes  made  love  in  the  most 
disheveled  lyricism.  Yet  here  is  a  young  man  and 
woman  who  love  each  other  just  as  we  all  do,  fooHshly, 
deeply,  with  the  ups  and  downs  of  reality.  It  is  a 
superior  picture.  I  will  give  in  exchange  for  these 
pages  all  those  in  which  Stendhal  complicates  the  char- 
acter oi  Julien^  sinking  into  those  subtle  analyses  he  is 
so  fond  of.  To-day  he  is  not  really  great,  except  in  the 
seven  or  eight  scenes  in  which  he  has  dared  to  bring 
in  the  note  of  reality — life  in  all  its  truthfulness. 

The  same  with  Balzac.  There  is  in  him  an  aroused 
sluggard  who  nods  now  and  then  and  sometimes  creates 
curious  figures,  which  certainly  do  not  add  to  the 
novelist's  greatness.  I  confess  I  have  no  admiration 
for  the  author  of  "  Femme  de  Trente  Ans,"  nor  for  the 
inventor  of  the  type  of  Vautrin  in  the  third  part  of 
"  Les  Illusions  Perdues,"  and  in  the  "  Splendeur  et 
Mis^re  des  Courtisanes."  These  are  what  I  call  Bal- 
zac's phantasmatography.  I  do  not  like  his  great  peo- 
ple any  better,  which  he  has  invented  entirely  out  of  his 


2i6  THE  NOVEL. 

own  brain  and  which  make  one  laugh,  if  you  except  a 
few  superb  types  called  forth  by  his  genius.  In  a  word, 
Balzac's  imagination,  that  ill-regulated  imagination, 
which  threw  itself  into  every  exaggeration,  and  which 
sought  to  create  the  world  anew  on  the  most  extra- 
ordinary basis,  it  irritates  me  more  than  it  attracts  me. 
If  the  novelist  had  had  but  that,  he  would  have  to-day 
but  a  pathological  interest  and  would  be  merely  a  curi- 
osity, etc.,  in  our  literature. 

But  happily  Balzac  had,  besides,  the  sense  of  reality, 
and  the  most  developed  sense  of  reality  we  have  yet 
seen.  His  chefs  d'oeuvre  give  proof  of  that :  that  mar- 
velous "  Cousine  Bette,"  in  which  Baron  Hulot  is  so 
colossal  with  truth  ;  "  Eugenie  Grandet,"  which  contains 
the  whole  country  at  a  certain  date  in  our  history.  I 
ought  also  to  mention  "  Pere  Goriot,"  "  La  Rabouil- 
leuse,"  **  Le  Cousin  Pons,"  and  many  other  works 
which  have  been  taken  quivering  and  living  from  the 
entrails  of  our  society.  Here  it  is  that  you  find  Bal- 
zac's immortal  glory.  He  founded  the  novel  of  to-day 
because  he  was  the  first  to  apply  to  it  this  sense  of 
reality  which  gave  him  power  to  call  forth  a  new 
world. 

However,  to  see  is  not  all :  you  must  give  it  again. 
This  is  why,  after  the  sense  of  reality,  there  is  the  per- 
sonality of  the  writer.  A  great  novelist  should  have 
the  sense  of  reality  and  also  personal  expression. 


PERSONAL  EXPRESSION. 

I  KNOW  some  novelists  who  write  very  correctly, 
and  who  have  finally  obtained  very  great  literary 
renown.  They  are  very  industrious,  they  approach  all 
kinds  of  literature  with  the  same  facility.  Phrases  flow 
from  their  pens  without  any  difficulty,  and  it  is  their 
practice  to  throw  off  five  or  six  hundred  lines  every 
morning  before  breakfast.  And,  I  repeat,  their  work  is 
very  good,  there  is  nothing  lame  about  the  grammar, 
the  movement  is  excellent,  color  appears  at  times  in 
these  pages  which  seem  to  say  to  the  public,  who  are 
dumb  with  respect :  "  This  is  prettily  written."  In  a 
word,  these  novelists  have  all  the  appearance  of  a  gen- 
uine talent. 

It  is  their  misfortune  to  be  without  any  indi- 
vidual expression,  and  that  is  enough  to  make  them 
forever  commonplace.  It  is  no  use  for  them  to  amass 
volume  after  volume,  employing  and  abusing  their 
incredible  fecundity ;  they  will  never  remove  from  their 
books  the  nauseous  odor  of  stillborn  works.  The  more 
they  produce  the  more  the  pile  becomes  mildewed. 
Their  correct  grammar,  their  perfectly  proper  prose, 
their  polished  style  may  fool  the  public  at  large  for  a 
shorter  or  longer  time  ;  but  all  this  will  not  suffice  to 
keep  their  books  alive,  and  will  have  no  weight  in  the 
final  judgment  passed  upon  them  by  competent  readers. 
They  have  no  individual  note,  and  so  they  are  con- 
demned.    All  the  more  that  almost  always  they  are 

817 


2i8  THE  NOVEL. 

lacking  also  in  the  sense  of  reality,  which  still  further 
aggravates  the  case. 

These  novelists  acquire  the  style  which  is  in  the  air 
around  them.  They  catch  the  phrases  which  are  flying^ 
about  them.  Their  phrases  never  emerge  from  their 
personality,  and  they  write  as  if  someone  from  behind 
was  dictating  to  them ;  and  it  is  for  that  reason,  per- 
haps, that  they  only  need  to  turn  on  the  faucet  to 
obtain  their  productions.  I  do  not  say  that  they 
plagiarize  from  this  man,  or  that  they  steal  whole  pages 
from  their  companions ;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  so 
fluent,  so  superficial  that  one  cannot  find  any  strong 
characteristic  in  their  writing,  not  even  that  of  some 
illustrious  master.  Only  without  copying  they  have, 
instead  of  a  creative  brain,  an  immense  storehouse 
filled  with  well-known  phrases,  current  expressions,  a 
kind  of  mean  of  the  common  style.  This  storehouse 
is  inexhaustible,  shovelfuls  may  be  taken  out  with 
which  to  cover  paper.-  Here  it  comes  and  here  it 
comes  again.  Always,  always  shovelfuls  of  cold  and 
dull  material  which  crowd  the  columns  of  the  news- 
papers and  the  pages  of  books. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  look  at  a  novelist  who  has 
an  individual  note  ;  for  instance,  M.  Alphonse  Daudet. 
I  take  this  writer  because  he  is  one  of  those  who  live 
in  their  works.  M.  Alphonse  Daudet  is  present  at  a 
spectacle,  at  a  scene  of  any  kind.  As  he  possesses 
the  sense  of  reality,  he  is  struck  with  this  scene, 
and  he  retains  a  very  vivid  impression  of  it.  Years 
may  roll  by — the  brain  preserves  the  image  ;  time 
but  makes  it  sink  in  more  deeply.  It  ends  by  be- 
coming a  possession  ;  the  writer  must  communicate 
it,    must   give   back  what  he  has  seen  and  retained. 


THE   NOVEL.  219 

Then  a  phenomenon  takes  place,  the  creation  of  an 
original  work. 

At  first  it  is  a  resurrection :  M.  Alphonse  Daudet 
remembers  what  he  has  seen  and  he  sees  the  characters 
again  with  their  gestures,  the  horizons  with  their  lines. 
He  feels  that  he  must  give  back  all  this.  From  that 
moment  he  acts  his  characters,  he  lives  in  their  sur- 
roundings, he  falls  into  a  passion  in  which  he  confounds 
his  own  personality  with  the  personality  of  the  beings 
and  even  with  the  things  which  he  wishes  to  depict.  He 
ends  by  becoming  one  with  his  work  in  the  sense  that 
he  becomes  absorbed  in  it,  and  at  the  same  time  resees 
it  for  the  sake  of  his  story.  In  this  intimate  union  the 
reality  of  the  scene  and  the  personality  of  the  novelist 
are  no  longer  distinct.  Which  are  the  absolutely  true 
details  and  which  are  invented  ?  This  would  be  very 
difficult  to  say.  What  is  certain,  though,  is  that  reality 
has  been  the  starting  point,  the  propelling  force  which 
has  powerfully  started  the  novelist ;  he  has  then  con- 
tinued the  reality,  he  has  extended  the  scene  in  the 
same  way,  giving  it  a  special  life  and  one  which 
belongs  to  him,  Alphonse  Daudet,  alone. 

The  whole  machinery  of  originality  is  there  in  this 
personal  expression  of  a  real  world  which  surrounds  us. 
M.  Alphonse  Daudet 's  charm,  this  wonderful  charm, 
which  has  won  for  him  so  high  a  place  in  our  present 
literature,  comes  from  the  original  flavor  which  he  gives 
to  the  most  insignificant  phrase.  He  cannot  relate  a 
fact,  present  a  character,  without  putting  himself  entirely 
into  this  fact  or  into  this  character,  with  the  vivacity  of 
his  irony,  the  sweetness  of  his  tenderness.  You  can 
tell  one  of  his  pages  among  a  hundred  others,  because 
his  pages  have  a  life  of  their  own.     He  is  an  enchanter, 


220  THE   NOVEL. 

one  of  those  Southern  story-tellers  who  act  what  they 
relate,  with  gestures  which  create  and  a  voice  which 
brings  up.  All  becomes  alive  under  their  open  hands, 
everything  takes  a  color,  a  smell,  and  a  sound.  They 
cry  and  laugh  with  their  heroes,  they  thee  and  thou 
them,  make  them  so  real  that  you  see  them  standing 
before  you  so  long  as  they  speak. 

How  is  it  possible  for  such  works  not  to  move  the 
public  ?  They  are  alive.  Open  them  and  you  will 
feel  them  palpitating  in  your  hands.  It  is  the  real 
world  ;  and  it  is  even  more,  it  is  the  real  world  inhabited 
by  a  writer  of  an  originality  both  exquisite  and  intense. 
He  can  choose  a  subject  more  or  less  happy,  treat  it 
in  a  way  more  or  less  complete :  the  work  will  not  be 
less  precious  because  it  will  be  unique,  because  he 
alone  can  give  it  that  turn,  that  accent,  that  existence. 
The  book  is  him  ;  that  is  sufficient.  It  will  be  classed 
some  day,  but  it  is  no  less  a  book  by  itself,  a  real  living 
being.  You  are  stirred  up,  you  like  or  you  do  not  like, 
no  one  remains  indifferent.  You  no  longer  question 
about  grammar  or  rhetoric,  and  you  no  longer  have 
merely  a  package  of  printed  paper  under  your  eyes  ;  a 
man  is  there,  a  man  whose  heart-beats  and  brain-work- 
ings are  heard  at  each  word.  You  abandon  yourself 
to  him,  because  he  has  become  the  master  of  the  read- 
er's emotions,  because  he  has  the  strength  of  reality 
and  the  all  powerful  note  of  individuality. 

Do  you  now  understand  the  radical  powerlessness  of 
the  novelists  of  whom  I  spoke  a  short  time  ago? 
They  never  take  possession  of  and  hold  their  readers, 
for  they  do  not  feel  and  they  do  not  reproduce  in  an 
original  manner.  You  will  vainly  search  in  their  works 
for  a  new  impression,  explained  in  an  original  phrase. 


THE  NOVEL.  221 

When  they  employ  certain  modes  of  expression,  when 
they  gather  up  here  and  there  happy  phrases,  these 
phrases,  so  full  of  life  in  another,  with  them  have  an 
empty  sound  ;  there  is  not  underneath  a  man  who  has 
truly  felt  and  who  translates  the  same  by  a  creative 
effort ;  there  is  a  manipulator  of  words,  opening  the 
faucet  of  his  production.  And  it  is  no  use  for  them  to 
apply  themselves,  to  wish  to  write  well,  thinking  that 
you  can  make  a  fine  book  as  you  do  a  fine  pair  of 
boots,  with  more  or  less  care  ;  they  will  never  bring 
forth  a  living  work.  Nothing  can  replace  the  sense  of 
reality  and  the  personal  expression.  When  they  do 
not  possess  these  gifts  they  might  much  better  go  out 
and  sell  candles  than  meddle  with  writing  novels. 

I  quoted  M.  Alphonse  Daudet  a  while  ago  because 
he  offered  me  a  most  striking  example.  But  I  could 
have  named  other  novelists  who  are  far  from  having 
his  talent.  Personal  expression  does  not  necessarily 
include  a  perfect  form.  You  can  write  badly,  incor- 
rectly, like  the  devil,  and  yet,  with  it  all,  retain  a  true 
originality  of  expression.  According  to  my  idea,  the 
worst  style  is,  on  the  contrary,  that  correct  style,  flow- 
ing in  an  easy,  soft  manner,  that  deluge  of  common- 
place, of  known  images,  which  calls  forth  from  the 
public  this  irritating  judgment :  "  It  is  well  written." 
No,  it  is  badly  written  as  soon  as  it  ceases  to  possess 
a  distinctive  life,  a  flavor  of  originality,  even  at  the 
expense  of  correctness  and  propriety  of  language. 

The  greatest  example  of  personal  expression  in  our 
literature  is  that  of  Saint-Simon.  Here  is  a  writer  who 
has  written  with  his  blood  and  his  anger,  and  who  has 
left  behind  him  pages  of  intensity  and  life  that  cannot 
be  forgotten.     I  was  wrong  even  to  call  him  a  writer, 


222  THE  NOVEL. 

for  he  seemed  not  to  care  about  writing;  and  he 
reached,  with  one  stroke,  the  highest  style  in  the  crea- 
tion of  a  language  and  in  the  living  expression.  Our 
most  illustrious  authors,  they  smell  of  rhetoric,  of  the 
preparation  of  the  phrase ;  an  odor  of  ink  enianates  from 
their  pages.  With  him  there  is  nothing  of  this ;  the 
phrase  is  but  a  palpitation  of  life ;  passion  has  dried  the 
ink;  the  work  is  a  human  cry,  the  long  monologue  of 
a  man  who  looks  on  high.  This  is  very  far  from  our 
romantic  way  of  managing  a  work,  in  which  we  exhaust 
ourselves  in  every  sort  of  artistic  effort. 

It  was  the  same  way  with  Stendhal.  He  pretended 
to  say  that  in  order  to  acquire  tone  he  read  several 
pages  of  the  Civil  Code  every  morning  before  com- 
mencing to  work.  This  was,  of  course,  a  simple  brag- 
gadocio thrown  at  the  romantic  school.  Stendhal 
wished  to  say  that  style  meant  for  him  the  clearest  and 
most  exact  translation  possible  of  the  idea.  He  also 
had  personal  expression  in  a  very  high  degree.  His 
dryness,  his  short  sentences,  so  incisive  and  penetrating, 
became  in  his  hands  a  marvelous  tool  for  analysis. 
You  could  not  imagine  him  as  a  graceful  writer.  He 
had  the  style  proper  to  his  talent,  a  style  so  original  in 
its  incorrectness  and  its  apparent  thoughtlessness  that 
it  has  remained  typical  of  him.  It  was  not  the  enor- 
mous stream  of  Saint-Simon,  sweeping  along  wonders 
and  ruins,  magnificent  in  its  violence  ;  it  was  like  a  lake 
frozen  on  top,  boiling,  perhaps,  in  its  depths,  and  which 
reflected  with  an  inexorable  truth  all  that  was  on  its 
edges. 

Balzac,  like  Stendhal,  has  been  accused  of  writing 
badly.  He  has,  however,  in  his  "  Contes  Drolatiques  " 
given  pages  which  are  masterpieces  of  word-painting.    I 


THE    NOVEL.  223 

know  nothing  more  prettily  invented  in  the  way  of  form, 
nor  more  finely  executed.  But  they  find  fault  with  the 
heavy  beginnings  to  his  novels,  his  massive  descrip- 
tions ;  above  all,  the  bad  taste  in  certain  exaggerations 
in  the  painting  of  his  characters.  It  is  evident  that  he 
has  an  enormous  foot,  which  is  of  too  crushing  a  force 
sometimes.  Then  we  must  judge  him  in  the  colossal 
ejisenible  of  his  work.  In  this  way  you  see  a  heroic 
struggler  who  has  battled  with  everything,  even  with 
style,  and  who  has  come  forth  a  hundred  times  victo- 
rious from  the  combat.  Besides,  without  going  into 
his  unfortunate  phrases,  his  style  is  always  redolent  of 
him.  He  kneads  it,  he  remodels  it,  he  remakes  it 
entirely  in  each  of  his  novels.  He  searches  for  a  form 
unceasingly.  You  find  this,  in  his  life  as  a  gigantic 
producer,  even  in  his  smallest  paragraphs.  He  is  there, 
the  forge  grumbles,  and  he  slaps  his  arm  in  turn  on  his 
phrases  until  they  bear  his  stamp.  This  stamp  they 
will  keep  forever.  Whatever  may  be  his  faults,  his  is 
a  grand  style. 

I  simply  had  the  intention,  by  giving  these  few 
examples,  to  explain  more  explicitly  what  I  meant  by 
personal  expression.  A  great  novelist  in  our  days  is 
he  who  has  a  sense  of  reality,  and  who  expresses  nature 
with  originality,  making  her  live  with  his  own  life. 


THE  CRITICAL   FORMULA  APPLIED 
TO   THE   NOVEL. 

I  LATELY  read  a  biographical  article,  in  which  the 
novelist  was  very  disdainfully  treated  by  the  critic. 
His  novels  were  cast  overboard ;  his  literary  essays 
were  approved  of,  without  perceiving  that  the  facul- 
ties of  the  critic  tend  to-day  to  run  into  the  faculties 
of  the  novelist.  This  is  a  question  which  seems  to  me 
to  be  worth  looking  into. 

Everybody  knows  what  criticism  has  attained  to 
in  our  days.  Without  giving  the  complete  history  of 
the  transformation  which  it  has  undergone  since  the 
last  century — a  history  which  would  be  most  instruct- 
ive, and  which  would  recapitulate  the  general  intel- 
lectual movements — it  is  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to 
quote  the  names  of  Sainte-Beuve  and  M.  Taine  to 
establish  the  distance  there  is  between  us  and  the  judg- 
ments of  La  Harpe,  and  even  the  "  Commentaries  "  of 
Voltaire. 

Sainte-Beuve  was  one  of  the  first  to  comprehend  the 
necessity  of  explaining  the  work  by  the  man.  He 
replaced  the  writer  in  his  surroundings,  studied  his 
family,  his  life,  his  tastes ;  in  one  word,  he  looked  upon 
a  written  page  as  the  product  of  all  kinds  of  elements, 
which  he  must  necessarily  know  in  order  to  pronounce 
a  complete,  just,  and  definite  judgment.  From  this 
point  come  the  deep  studies  of  human  nature  which  he 
wrote  with  a  flexibility  capable  of  marvelous  investiga- 

224 


THE  NOVEL.  225 

tion,  with  a  delicate  perception  of  the  thousand  shades 
and  complex  contradictions  of  man.  This  was  far, 
indeed,  from  the  critics  who  judged  after  the  manner 
of  pedagogues,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  school, 
making  complete  separation  between  the  man  and  the 
writer,  applying  to  all  works  the  same  common  stand- 
ard, and  looking  upon  them  simply  from  a  grammarian's 
and  a  rhetorician's  standpoint. 

M.  Taine  came  and  made  a  science  of  criticism.  He 
reduced  to  rules  the  method  which  Sainte-Beuve 
employed  as  a  virtuoso.  This  gave  a  certain  harshness 
to  the  new  instrument  employed  by  the  critic;  but 
this  instrument  acquired  an  indisputable  power.  There 
is  no  necessity  for  me  to  recall  M.  Taine's  admirable 
works.  Everyone  knows  his  theory  of  surroundings 
and  of  historical  incidents  applied  to  the  literary  move- 
ment of  nations.  M.  Taine  is  really  the  foremost  critic 
we  have,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  shuts  himself 
up  in  history  and  philosophy,  instead  of  taking  an 
active  part  in  the  daily  battle,  instead  of  directing 
opinion  as  Sainte-Beuve  did  by  judging  the  small  and 
the  great  of  our  literature. 

I  simply  wish  to  state  fully  and  explicitly  in  what 
manner  modern  criticism  proceeds.  For  example,  M. 
Taine  wishes  to  write  the  fine  study  which  he  has 
made  on  Balzac.  He  begins  by  gathering  together  all 
the  documents  conceivable,  the  books  and  articles  which 
have  been  published  about  the  novelist ;  he  questions 
the  people  who  have  known  him,  those  who  can  give  him 
any  certain  information  upon  him  ;  and  yet  this  is  not 
sufficient ;  he  never  rests  until  he  has  seen  the  places 
in  which  Balzac  has  lived,  he  visits  the  town  in 
which  he  was  born,  the  houses  he   has  occupied,  the 


2  26  THE   NOVEL. 

districts  he  has  traveled  through.  In  this  way  every- 
thing is  ransacked  by  the  critic — the  antecedents,  the 
friends — until  he  possesses  Balzac  absolutely,  in  his 
most  intimate  recesses,  as  the  anatomist  possesses  the 
body  he  has  just  dissected.  Then  he  can  read  the 
work.  The  producer  stands  before  him  and  explains 
the  production. 

Read  this  study  by  M.  Taine.  You  will  see  the 
working  of  his  method.  The  book  is  in  the  man  ; 
Balzac,  pursued  by  his  creditors,  piling  up  extraordinary 
projects,  passing  entire  nights  working  to  pay  his 
debts,  his  brain  always  active,  his  end  the  "  Comedie 
Humaine."  I  do  not  comment  upon  the  system. 
I  lay  it  bare,  and  I  say  there  is  real  criticism  with  more 
or  less  bias.  Hereafter  the  man  will  never  be  separated 
from  his  work ;  the  one  will  be  studied  to  understand 
the  other. 

Our  naturalistic  novelists  have  no  other  methods. 
When  M.  Taine  studies  Balzac  he  does  exactly  what 
Balzac  himself  did  when  he  studied,  for  example,  the 
character  of  Pere  Grandet,  The  critic  operates  upon 
the  writer  in  order  to  judge  of  his  works,  as  the  novel- 
ist operates  upon  a  character  to  know  his  acts.  On 
both  sides  there  is  the  same  attention  to  surroundings 
and  circumstances.  Recall  to  yourself  Balzac  determin- 
ing exactly  the  street  and  the  house  in  which  Grandet 
lived,  analyzing  the  people  who  surrounded  him,  estab- 
lishing the  thousand  little  facts  which  have  decided 
the  character  and  the  habits  of  his  miser.  Is  not  that 
an  absolute  application  of  the  theory  of  surroundings 
and  circumstances  ?  I  repeat  again,  the  work  is 
identical. 

You  will  say  that  M.  Taine  is  walking  on  real  ground, 


THE   NOVEL.  227 

he  accepts  but  proven  facts  which  have  really  hap- 
pened, while  Balzac  is  free  to  invent,  and  certainly  uses 
this  liberty.  But  you  must  always  admit  that  Balzac 
bases  his  novel  on  a  primary  truth.  The  surroundings 
which  he  describes  are  exact  and  the  characters  which 
he  places  in  them  have  their  feet  on  the  ground. 
Henceforth  it  is  little  matter  the  work  which  follows, 
the  moment  that  the  method  of  construction  employed 
by  the  novelist  is  identical  with  that  of  the  critic.  The 
novelist  starts  out  from  real  surroundings  and  from 
true  human  data ;  if  afterward  he  develops  in  a  certain 
sense  it  is  no  more  imagination  according  to  the  old 
style  of  story-tellers ;  it  is  deduction  after  the  manner 
of  savants.  Further,  I  have  not  pretended  to  say  that 
the  results  were  exactly  the  same  in  the  study  of  a 
writer  and  in  that  of  a  character ;  in  the  former  case, 
for  a  certainty,  you  touch  reality  the  nearest,  leaving, 
however,  a  great  deal  to  intuition.  But  I  say  again  the 
method  is  precisely  the  same. 

Moreover,  this  is  the  double  effect  of  the  naturaUstic 
evolution  of  the  century.  In  truth,  if  you  dig  deep 
enough  you  will  reach  the  same  philosophical  soil,  the 
positivist  inquiry.  In  fact,  to-day  the  critic  and  the 
novelist  no  longer  conclude.  They  are  content  to 
expose.  Behold  what  they  have  seen  ;  behold  how 
such  an  author  must  produce  such  a  work,  and  behold 
how  such  a  character  must  commit  such  an  act.  On 
both  sides  they  show  the  human  machine  at  work, 
nothing  more.  From  comparing  facts  we  end,  it  is 
true,  by  formulating  laws.  But  the  slower  we  are  about 
formulating  laws,  the  wiser  we  shall  be,  for  M.  Taine 
himself,  because  he  was  a  little  hurried,  was  accused  of 
yielding  to  a   system.     We   had   best   busy   ourselves 


2  2S  THE   NOVEL. 

collecting  and  classifying  documents,  above  all,  in  the 
novel.  It  is  already  a  great  work  merely  to  search  for 
and  to  say  what  is.  We  must  leave  science  to  for- 
mulate the  laws,  as  we  can  only  trim  out  and  arrange 
the  reports,  we  novelists  and  critics. 

Therefore  to  sum  up :  The  novelist  and  the  critic 
start  to-day  from  the  same  point,  the  exact  surroundings, 
and  the  human  data  taken  from  nature,  and  they 
employ  the  same  method  to  reach  a  knowledge  and  an 
explanation,  on  one  side,  of  the  work  written  by  a  man, 
and,  on  the  other,  of  the  acts  of  a  character,  the  written 
work  and  the  acts  being  looked  upon  as  the  products 
of  the  human  machine  submitted  to  certain  influences. 
From  this  it  becomes  evident  that  the  naturalistic 
novelist  is  an  excellent  critic.  It  is  but  necessary  to 
carry  into  the  study  of  any  writer  whatsoever,  the  tool 
of  observation  and  analysis  of  which  he  made  use  to 
know  the  characters  which  he  took  from  nature.  It  is 
wrong  to  think  that  he  becomes  belittled  as  a  novelist 
when  it  is  lightly  said  of  him :  "  He  is  only  a 
critic." 

All  these  errors  come  from  the  false  idea  which 
people  continue  to  hold  about  the  novel.  It  is  too  bad, 
in  the  first  place,  that  we  have  not  been  able  to  change 
this  word  roman,  which  no  longer  signifies  anything 
as  applied  to  our  naturalistic  works.  This  word  brings 
with  it  the  idea  of  a  story,  a  fable,  a  flight  of  fancy 
which  clashes  with  the  report  which  we  are  arranging. 
For  fifteen  or  twenty  years  we  have  felt  the  growing 
impropriety  of  the  term,  and  there  was  a  time  when  we 
were  tempted  to  put  on  the  book  covers  the  word 
^tude.  But  that  was  too  vague,  the  word  "  roman  " 
was   kept   in   spite   of    everything,   and   to-day   there 


THE   NOVEL.  229 

would  be  necessary  a  lucky  hit  in  order  to  replace  it. 
Besides,  these  changes  should  produce  and  impose 
themselves. 

For  my  part,  the  name  does  not  worry  me  if  they 
are  willing  to  admit  that,  though  it  is  kept,  the  thing 
itself  is  completely  modified.  We  find  a  hundred 
examples  in  the  language  of  terms  which  formerly 
expressed  ideas  radically  contrary  to  those  which  they 
express  to-day.  Our  chivalrous,  our  adventurous,  our 
romantic  and  idealistic  novel  has  now  become  a  true 
criticism  of  the  manners,  the  passions,  and  the  acts  of 
the  hero  brought  on  to  the  stage,  studied  in  his  own 
person  and  under  the  influences  which  the  surroundings 
and  circumstances  had  upon  him.  As  I  have  written, 
to  the  great  scandal  of  my  colleagues,  imagination  no 
longer  plays  the  dominant  role ;  it  changes  into  deduc- 
tion, intuition  ;  it  busies  itself  with  the  probable  facts 
which  could  not  directly  be  observed,  and  with  the 
possible  consequences  of  facts  which  we  are  trying  to 
establish  logically  according  to  method.  Such  a  novel 
as  this  is  a  true  page  of  criticism,  for  in  it  the  novelist 
places  himself  before  the  character  whose  passions  he 
wishes  to  study  in  exactly  the  same  attitude  that  the 
critic  assumes  toward  the  writer  whose  talent  he  wishes 
to  exhibit. 

Is  it  necessary  for  me  to  conclude?  The  affinity 
between  the  critic  and  the  novelist  arises  essentially 
from  this  :  that  both  employ,  as  I  have  already  said,  the 
naturalistic  method  of  the  age.  If  we  turn  to  the 
historian  we  shall  see  him  also  performing  the  same 
labor  in  history  and  with  the  same  tool.  The  same 
with  the  economist  and  with  the  politician.  These 
facts  are  easily  proven,  and  show  the  savant  at  the  head 


230  THE   NOVEL. 

of  the  movement  leading  human  intelligence  to-day. 
We  are  of  more  or  less  value  as  science  has  touched  us 
more  or  less  deeply.  I  leave  the  personality  of  the 
artist  aside,  I  only  indicate  here  the  great  intellectual 
stream,  the  breath  which  carries  us  all  along  with  it 
toward  the  twentieth  century,  whatever  may  be  our 
individual  mode  of  expression. 


DESCRIPTION. 

IT  would  be  very  interesting  to  study  the  descriptions 
in  our  novels  from  the  time  of  Mile,  de  Scud^ry 
until  Flaubert.  It  would  be  the  history  of  philosophy 
and  science  during  the  last  two  centuries;  for  under 
this  literary  question  of  description  there  is  nothing 
but  the  return  to  nature,  this  great  naturalistic  current 
which  has  produced  our  beliefs  and  actual  knowledge. 
We  should  see  the  novel  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
which,  like  the  tragedy,  sets  in  motion  purely  intellectual 
creations  on  a  neutral,  indeterminate,  and  conventional 
ground  ;  the  characters  are  simple  mechanisms  of  feel- 
ings and  passions,  who  work  outside  of  time  and  space, 
and  in  consequence  the  surroundings  are  of  no  impor- 
tance and  nature  has  no  role  to  play  in  the  work.  Then 
in  the  novels  of  the  eighteenth  century  we  should  see 
nature  shooting  forth  but  in  philosophical  dissertations 
or  in  the  cut  and  dried  manner  of  idyllic  emotions. 
Finally,  our  century  comes  with  the  descriptive  orgies 
of  romanticism,  this  violent  reaction  of  color,  and  the 
scientific  employment  of  description  :  its  precise  role  in 
the  modern  novel  is  not  fully  settled  until  the  appear- 
ance of  Balzac,  Flaubert,  the  de  Goncourts,  and  others. 
These,  then,  are  the  chief  milestones  of  a  study 
which  I  have  not  the  leisure  to  undertake.  It  is  suffi- 
cient for  me  to  indicate  it  in  order  to  give  here  some 
general  notes  on  description. 

In  the  first  place,  the  word  description  is  no  longer 


■232  THE   NOVEL. 

suitable.  It  is  as  bad  to-day  as  the  word  roman, 
which  has  no  longer  any  significance  when  applied  to 
our  naturalistic  studies.  To  describe  is  no  longer  our 
end  ;  we  simply  desire  to  complete  and  determine.  For 
example,  the  zoologist  who  in  speaking  of  a  particular 
kind  of  an  insect  finds  it  necessary  to  study  the  plant 
upon  which  this  insect  lives,  and  from  which  it  draws 
its  being,  even  up  to  its  form  and  its  color,  finds  it 
necessary  to  make  a  description ;  but  this  description 
enters  into  the  very  analysis  of  the  insect ;  there  is  in 
this  the  necessity  of  a  savant  and  not  the  mere  display 
of  a  painter.  This  amounts  to  saying  that  we  no  longer 
describe  for  the  sake  of  describing,  from  a  caprice  and 
a  pleasure  of  rhetoricians.  We  consider  that  man  can- 
not be  separated  from  his  surroundings,  that  he  is  com- 
pleted by  his  clothes,  his  house,  his  city,  and  his  country ; 
and  hence  we  shall  not  note  a  single  phenomenon  of  his 
brain  or  heart  without  looking  for  the  causes  or  the 
consequence  in  his  surroundings.  There  results  from 
this  what  are  called  our  eternal  descriptions. 

We  have  given  to  nature,  to  the  spacious  world,  a 
place  as  large  as  that  which  we  give  to  man.  We  do 
not  admit  that  man  alone  exists  and  that  he  alone  is  of 
any  importance,  persuaded  to  the  contrary  that  he  is 
a  simple  result ;  and  to  have  the  human  drama  real  and 
complete  we  must  interrogate  all  that  is.  I  know  that 
this  startles  philosophers.  This  is  why  we  place  our- 
selves at  the  scientific  point  of  view,  at  the  point  of 
observation  and  experiment,  which  gives  us,  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  the  greatest  certitude  possible. 

You  cannot  accustom  yourself  to  these  ideas,  because 
they  clash  with  our  time-honored  rhetoric.  To  want  to 
introduce  the  scientific  rnethod  into  literature  seems 


THE   NOVEL.  233 

ignorant,  vain,  and  barbarous.  But  it  is  not  we  who 
introduce  this  method  ;  it  has  introduced  itself  without 
help,  and  the  movement  would  continue  even  if  we 
wished  to  check  it.  We  are  but  stating  what  has  taken 
place  in  our  modern  letters.  The  character  is  no  longer 
a  psychological  abstraction,  as  all  the  world  can  see. 
The  character  has  become  the  product  of  the  air  and  the 
soil,  like  a  plant ;  it  is  the  scientific  conception.  From 
this  moment  the  psychologist  should  become  an 
observer  and  an  experimentalist  if  he  wishes  to  clearly 
explain  the  movements  of  the  soul.  We  cease  to 
remain  among  the  literary  graces  of  a  description 
clothed  in  a  fine  style ;  we  are  busy  studying  the  exact 
surroundings,  stating  the  conditions  of  the  exterior 
world,  which  correspond  to  the  interior  conditions  of 
the  characters. 

Then  I  should  define  description :  "An  account  of 
the  environment  which  determines  and  completes 
man." 

Now  it  is  very  certain  that  we  rarely  hold  ourselves 
to  this  scientific  rigor.  All  reaction  is  violent,  and 
we  shall  react  still  against  the  abstract  formula  of  the 
last  centuries.  Nature  has  entered  into  our  works  with 
so  impetuous  a  bound  that  it  has  filled  them,  some- 
times swamping  the  humah  element,  submerging  and 
carrying  away  characters  in  the  midst  of  a  downfall  of 
rocks  and  great  trees.  This  was  inevitable.  We  must 
leave  time  to  weigh  the  new  formula  and  to  arrive 
at  its  exact  expression.  Besides,  in  this  riot  of  descrip- 
tion, this  overflow  of  nature,  there  is  much  to  learn, 
much  to  say.  There  are  precious  data  to  be  found 
here,  which  would  be  very  valuable  in  a  history  of  the 
naturalistic  evolution. 


234  THE   NOVEL. 

I  have  already  said  that  I  did  not  care  much  for 
Theophile  Gautier's  prodigious  descriptive  talent.  I 
find  truly  in  him  description  for  the  sake  of  descrip- 
tion, without  a  thought  of  any  kind  for  humanity. 
He  is  the  direct  descendant  of  the  Abbe  Dehlle. 
In  his  books  the  surroundings  never  determine  a  living 
being ;  he  remains  a  painter ;  he  has  only  words  as  a 
painter  has  only  his  colors.  This  puts  into  his  works 
a  sepulchral  silence ;  there  is  nothing  in  them  but 
things ;  not  a  voice,  not  a  human  quiver  arises  from  this 
dead  world.  I  cannot  read  a  hundred  pages  of  Gau- 
tier's in-succession,  because  they  do  not  stir  me,  they 
do  not  take  hold  of  me.  When  I  have  admired  his 
happy  gift  of  language,  the  modes  and  ease  of  the 
description,  there  is  nothing  for  me  to  do  but  close  the 
book. 

On  the  contrary,  look  at  the  de  Goncourt  brothers. 
They  do  not  any  more  always  remain  rigorously  con- 
fined to  the  scientific  study  of  surroundings,  entirely 
subordinated  to  the  complete  knowledge  of  the  char- 
acters. They  let  themselves  enjoy  the  pleasure  of 
describing,  as  artists  who  play  with  the  language  and 
are  happy  to  bend  it  to  the  thousand  difficulties  of 
utterance.  Only  they  always  put  their  power  of  expres- 
sion at  the  service  of  human  beings.  This  consists  no 
longer  of  perfect  phrases  on  a  given  subject,  but  of  feel- 
ings felt  before  a  spectacle.  Man  appears,  mingles  in 
things,  and  animates  them  by  the  nervous  vibration  of 
his  emotion.  All  the  de  Goncourts'  genius  shows  in 
this  so  vivid  translation  of  nature,  in  those  carefully 
noted  quiverings,  those  whispered  murmurings,  those 
thousand  breathings  rendered  perceptible.  With  them 
description  seems  to  breathe.     It  overflows  sometimes, 


THE   NOVEL.  235 

and  their  characters  fluctuate  in  too  enlarged  a  horizon  ; 
but  even  if  it  presents  itself  alone  it  remains  in  its  place 
as  determining  condition  ;  it  is  always  noted  in  its  con- 
nection with  rtiafi  a^  thus  always  retains  a  human 
interest. 

Gustave  Flaubert  is  the  novelist  who,  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  has  employed  description  with  the  greatest 
moderation.  The  surroundings  occupy  a  discreet  equi- 
librium with  him ;  they  do  not  submerge  the  character, 
and  nearly  always  content  themselves  with  determining 
it.  This  is  what  gives  "  Mme.  Bovary  "  and  "  L'Edu- 
cation  Sentimentale  "  so  much  force.  It  can  truthfully 
be  said  that  Gustave  Flaubert  has  reduced  to  strict 
necessity  the  long  appraiser's  enumerations  with  which 
Balzac  lumbered  up  the  beginning  of  his  novels.  He  is 
temperate,  which  is  a  rare  quality ;  he  gives  the  salient 
trait,  the  main  lines,  the  peculiarity  which  paints,  and 
that  is  sufficient  to  make  the  picture  a  never  to  be  for- 
gotten one.  I  would  counsel  anyone  to  study  Gustave 
Flaubert,  for  description  or  for  the  necessary  painting 
of  surroundings,  each  time  that  they  complete  or  explain 
a  character. 

The  rest  of  us,  for  the  most  part,  have  been  less  wise, 
less  well  balanced.  The  passion  for  nature  has  often 
carried  us  away,  and  we  have  given  bad  examples  in 
our  exuberance,  and  in  our  rapture  over  the  open  air. 
Nothing  affects  the  brain  of  a  poet  so  surely  as  a  sun- 
stroke. He  dreams  of  all  kinds  of  folly,  he  writes 
books  in  which  the  springs  commence  to  sing,  the  oaks 
to  talk  with  each  other,  the  rocks  to  sigh  and  palpitate 
like  a  woman  overcome  with  the  midday  heat.  And 
there  are  symphonies  in  the  leaves,  roles  given  to  the 
blades  of  grass,  poems  on  light  and  on  odors.     If  there 


236  THE  NOVEL. 

is  any  excuse  to  be  offered  for  such  digressions  it  is 
because  we  have  dreamed  of  broadening  humanity, 
and  that  we  have  imbued  even  the  stones  in  the  road- 
ways with  it. 

May  I  be  permitted  to  speak  of  myself  ?  What  they 
reproach  me  with  the  most,  even  sympathetic  spirits, 
are  the  five  descriptions  of  Paris  which  keep  returning 
and  conclude  the  five  parts  of  "  Une  Page  d'Amour." 
They  only  see  in  this  the  caprice  of  an  artist  for  a 
fatiguing  repetition,  as  for  a  sort  of  conquered  difficulty, 
in  order  thus  to  show  his  dexterity  of  hand.  I  may  be 
mistaken,  and  I  have  certainly  made  a  mistake,  because 
no  one  seems  to  have  understood  me  ;  but,  in  truth,  I 
had  all  sorts  of  good  intentions  when  I  became  infatu- 
ated with  these  five  pictures,  all  of  the  same  scene 
viewed  at  different  hours  and  seasons.  This  is  the  his- 
tory of  it.  In  the  poverty  of  my  youth  I  lived  in  a 
garret  in  the  faubourgs,  from  which  the  whole  of  Paris 
can  be  seen.  This  great,  motionless,  and  indifferent 
Paris,  which  was  framed  by  my  window,  seemed  to  me 
the  mute  witness,  the  tragic  confidant  of  my  joys  and 
my  sorrows.  I  have  been  hungry,  and  I  have  wept  before 
her ;  and  before  her  I  have  loved,  I  have  experienced 
my  greatest  happiness.  Well,  then,  since  my  twentieth 
year  I  have  dreamed  of  writing  a  novel,  of  which  Paris, 
with  her  ocean  of  roofs,  should  be  a  character  some- 
thing like  an  ancient  chorus.  I  needed  an  intimate 
drama,  three  or  four  people  in  a  little  room,  then  the 
immense  city  on  the  horizon,  always  present,  gazing  at 
the  frightful  torture  of  these  miserable  creatures  with 
her  eyes  of  stone.  It  is  this  old  idea  which  I  have 
tried  to  reaHze  in  "  Une  Page  d'Amour."    That   is  all. 

But  I  do  not  defend  these  five  descriptions.     The 


THE   NOVEL.  237 

idea  was  bad,  since  it  has  found  no  one  to  understand 
and  defend  it.  Perhaps  I  put  them  in  the  work  in  a 
form  too  stiff  and  too  symmetrical.  I  quote  the  fact 
only  to  show  that,  in  what  they  call  our  rage  for 
description,  we  never  succumb  to  the  need  for  mere 
description  alone  ;  but  mingled  with  it  there  is  always 
a  harmonizing  or  human  purpose.  The  entire  creation 
belongs  to  us ;  we  make  it  enter  into  our  works ;  we 
dream  of  depicting  the  whole  of  heaven's  wide  vault. 
To  wish  to  shut  us  up  in  a  descriptive  mania  is  to 
unjustly  lessen  our  ambition,  not  allowing  us  to  get 
?)eyond  the  more  or  less  correct  outHning  of  the  con- 
ditions. 

I  will  finish  by  a  declaration  :  in  a  novel,  in  a  study 
of  humanity,  I  blame  all  description  which  is  not 
according  to  the  definition  given  further  back,  an 
account  of  [  the  environment  which  determines  and 
completes  man.  I  have  sinned  enough  myself  to  have 
the  right  to  recognize  this  truth. 


THREE   DEBUTS. 


LEON  HENNIQUE. 

A  BEGINNER'S  book  is  like  virgin  soil.  Before  cut- 
ting the  pages  you  have  the  sense  of  the  unknown. 
Who  knows — perhaps  there  is  the  first  cry  of  a  great 
genius  in  this  book  ?  A  veiled  lady  passes  by.  The 
heart  beats.  You  follow  her.  Mon  Dieu,  if  she  is  the 
one  for  whom  one  waits !  I  know  that  women  and 
books  often  bring  disenchantments  ;  the  woman  is  ugly, 
the  book  puts  you  to  sleep.  What  matters  it — you 
have  had  the  charm  of  hope. 

I  have  just  felt,  this  rare  pleasure  in  reading  "  La 
D^vouee  "  of  M.  Leon  Hennique.  You  go  from  dis- 
covery to  discovery.  You  are  astonished  by  a  new 
accent.  You  say  naively :  "  What !  this  boy  has 
already  as  much  talent  as  this  ? "  And  this  is  great 
praise,  notwithstanding  the  joking  tone  of  the  exclama- 
tion. When  I  receive  the  last  novel  of  a  writer  whose 
good  qualities  are  already  known  to  me,  I  only  have 
the  pleasure  of  once  more  remarking  these  qualities. 
But  here  is  an  unknown  ground,  of  which  my  spirit 
takes  possession. 

Here  is  the  plot  in  a  few  words.  A  QGYidAn  JeoffriUj 
sprung  from  the  liaison  of  a  scholar  and  a  girl,  has 
grown    up  in   the   household  of   a   day   laborer.     He 


THE  NOVEL.  2^,^ 

has  wished  to  be  a  clockmaker.  Then,  after  having 
amassed  a  fortune,  he  is  attacked  with  the  inventor's 
fever ;  he  gives  himself  up,  heart  and  soul,  to  the  prob- 
lem of  directing  and  steering  balloons.  This  Jeoffrin 
is  a  modern  hero,  as  M.  Hennique  calls  him  with  terri- 
ble truth.  I  mean  to  say  that  he  fights  his  way  into 
society  unscrupulously,  indeed  in  a  rascally  fashion, 
attaining  his  ends  after  the  manner  of  an  able  man 
whom  nothing  could  stop. 

Then  the  pith  of  the  drama  follows.  Jeoffrin  has  two 
daughters,  Michelle  and  Pauline,  to  whom  an  uncle  has 
left  one  hundred  thousand  francs,  fifty  thousand  to 
each.  It  happens  that  the  father  finds  himself  at  the 
end  of  his  resources  ;  his  inventions  have  swallowed  a 
fortune,  and  he  lives  in  a  condition  of  impotent  rage, 
seeing  his  hands  tied  just  at  the  moment  when  he 
thought  he  had  discovered  a  way  to  steer  balloons. 
If  he  only  had  money  it  would  mean  success  and  tri- 
umph. He  first  tried  to  borrow  Michelle's  fifty  thousand 
francs.  But  she  refused  ;  this  money  is  all  that  remains 
of  the  former  wealth  of  the  family.  Then  crime  begins 
to  grow  in  Jeoffrin  s  brain  as  naturally  as  a  plant  which 
is  one  day  to  bloom.  He  begins  by  poisoning  his 
daughter  Pauline,  which  he  arranges  in  such  a  way  that 
Michelle  is  accused.  She  is  arrested,  tried,  found  guilty, 
and  guillotined.  Jeoffrin  has  got  rid  of  the  two  children 
who  stood  in  his  way,  and  he  has  inherited  the  hundred 
thousand  francs.  Now  he  has  the  power  to  construct 
his  balloon.  The  story  stops  here.  It  is  simple  and 
frightful. 

I  will  say  that  this  subject  trouble'd  me  greatly,  and, 
besides  this  trouble,  there  was  a  sort  of  irritation  against 
the  novelist.     Why  should  he  write  so  black  a  drama  ? 


240  THE   NOVEL. 

Life  is  more  commonplace,  events  run  along  with 
more  simplicity.  Then,  even  while  accepting  the  drama, 
Jeoffrin  worried  me.  He  disarranged  my  precon- 
ceived ideas  about  inventors,  whom' I  considered,  I  do 
not  know  for  what  reason,  as  mild  and  inoffensive 
cranks.  This  one  killed  his  daughters  too  quietly.  I 
thought  he  might  have  got  the  hundred  thousand 
francs  by  some  less  radical  means.  A  great  many  other 
objections  arose  in  my  mind.  Briefly,  the  subject  was 
displeasing  to  me ;  I  could  not  force  myself  to  accept 
Jeoffrin. 

When  I  had  reached  this  point  I  re-read  certain  pas- 
sages, and  from  the  bottom  of  my  judgment  a  voice, 
feeble  at  first,  cried  out  to  me:  "Why  not?"  It  was 
the  first  crack !  This  devil  of  a  Jeoffrin  possessed  me  ; 
I  argued  about  him  with  myself  every  minute  of  the 
day.  He  grew,  he  stood  out  clearer  and  clearer,  he 
took  a  more  and  more  solid  outline.  Yes,  why  not  ? 
Why  should  not  this  man  have  killed  his  two  daughters 
in  his  passion  for  a  fixed  idea,  which  changed  his  whole 
being?  I  could  mention  a  hundred  facts  of  the  same 
kind.  Jeoffrin  was  admirably  drawn ;  the  novelist's 
analysis  showed  him  to  us  as  he  should  be ;  murder 
was  but  a  natural  development  in  him.  I  ended  by 
thinking  that  if  he  had  not  committed  murder  this 
rogue's  character  would  have  been  incomplete. 

Such  were  the  impressions  through  which  I  passed 
before  becoming  convinced  that  Jeoffrin  was  a  very 
original  and  very  bold  creation,  set  up  by  a  vigorous 
hand  and  studied  subsequently  by  a  science  already 
great.  Remark  that  through  it  all  he  remains  a  brave 
man.  He  has  nothing  in  him  of  the  ideal  traitor  of  a 
melodrama.    He  poisons  as  the  father  of  a  family  who 


THE  NOVEL.  24I 

desires  to  do  the  thing  properly.  He  is  an  actor  play- 
ing the  role  of  a  hypocrite  in  a  superior  manner.  He 
loved  his  balloons  better  than  his  daughters,  and  he  sac- 
rifices his  daughters.  This  seems  fair  to  him.  All 
human  madness  lies  below  this ;  one  hears  it  rumbling 
under  the  usual  good  nature  of  this  crime.  And  this 
is  just  what  constitutes  Jeoffriji's  depth.  Is  he  a  man 
of  genius?  Perhaps.  Is  he  a  fool?  He  may  be.  He 
is  the  human  abyss,  that  is  all  we  know.  The  assassin 
in  his  nature  is  but  the  acute  condition  of  his  intelli- 
gence. You  feel  a  shiver  creep  over  you ;  you  will 
never  forget  this  terrible  man,  who  is  a  deranged 
colossus. 

I  have  laid  great  stress  on  Jeoffrin  because  he  is  the 
entire  book.  But  beside  him  there  are  some  secondary 
characters  drawn  with  a  stroke.  I  would  mention  the 
police  commissioner  Barbelet^  the  Misses  Th^ry,  and 
the  more  delicately  drawn  silhouettes  of  young  Guy  de 
Lassalle  and  Poupelard,  the  Bohemian.  M.  Hennique 
seems  to  me  to  possess  that  gift  of  creation  which 
makes  a  character  live,  which  places  him  in  his  true 
atmosphere,  gives  him  a  natural  gesture  and  the  proper 
voice.  A  phrase  is  sufficient  to  create.  Only  you 
must  have  the  sense  of  reality,  and  I  know  writers  of 
great  merit  as  stylists  who  will  exhaust  themselves  for 
months  on  the  perfection  of  a  phrase  without  ever  suc- 
ceeding in  breathing  life  into  it. 

The  novelist  is  content  to  unroll  before  us  pictures 
taken  from  everyday  life.  This  is  what  he  has  seen  ; 
he  has  noted  the  details,  he  reconstructs  the  whole. 
Let  the  reader  in  his  turn  feel  and  reflect.  The  natu- 
ralistic method  is  there  in  its  entirety.  A  work  is  no 
longer  but  an  intense  calling  forth  of  humanity  and 


242  THE   NOVEL. 

nature.  The  author  strives  to  put  a  corner  of  creation 
in  a  work.  People  read  it  later  as  though  they  them- 
selves moved  in  the  surroundings  described  and  among 
the  characters  analyzed.  " 

Thus  the  first  chapter  of  the  ''Devouee  "  is  simply 
the  recital  of  a  promenade  Michelle  and  her  godfather 
Barbelet  take  across  the  fields  which  surround  Mouli- 
neaux.  Their  conversation  is  broken  here  and  there  by 
descriptions  of  this  corner  of  the  Parisian  suburbs.  Little 
by  little  the  twilight  falls,  the  sun  sets  over  Paris. 
There  is  here  certainly  something  of  the  virtuoso.  The 
writer  who,  in  spite  of  his  youth,  is  already  master  of 
his  style,  delights  in  these  conquered  difficulties.  But 
who  will  dare  absolutely  condemn  this  extended  be- 
ginning, this  conversation  which  sets  forth  the  facts, 
these  descriptions  which  open  the  dark  history  with  a 
puff  of  fresh  air  ?  Must  not  the  surroundings  be  firmly 
established  ?  Jeoffrin  would  become  an  impossibility 
if  Paris,  behind  him,  did  not  smoke  in  the  evening 
mists. 

The  second  chapter  describes  a  dinner  at  Jeoffrin' s 
house,  in  which  M.  Hennique  has  gathered  together  all 
his  secondary  characters.  Nothing  could  be  more  full 
of  movement.  But  I  cannot  analyze  each  chapter  thus. 
I  will  content  myself  by  indicating  those  points  which 
struck  me  most  vividly,  and  especially  the  superb  pic- 
ture of  Pauline's  death  and  burial.  The  effect  is  start- 
ling. There  is  no  inflated  style,  however.  Only  small 
details,  true  observations,  a  relentless  reality,  which 
little  by  little  takes  you  by  the  throat  and  reaches  the 
most  violent  emotion.  It  was  so  intense  that  you  felt 
this  must  be  true. 

In   my   opinion   the   most  astonishing  part   of   the 


THE   NOVEL.  243 

book  is  Jeoffrins  day  on  the  morrow  of  Michelle's  exe- 
cution. Jeoffrin  has  fled  to  Montmartre,  to  a  hotel 
there.  Knowing  nothing  he  enters  a  saloon  and  calls 
for  a  beefsteak,  and  then  it  is  that  he  casts  his  eyes 
over  a  newspaper  and  finds  that  his  daughter  had  been 
guillotined  that  morning.  This  makes  his  heart  jump. 
"  His  balloon  seemed  vibrating  in  the  blue  sky,  floating 
without  encumbrance,  rising  and  descending  according 
to  his  fancy,  flying  to  the  left,  then  to  the  right,  like 
a  trained  eagle  obeying  his  gestures.  Then  he  ate  his 
beefsteak  and  called  for  some  cauliflower.  At  last  he 
was  free  ! " 

Then  commenced  a  whole  day  of  happy  loafing. 
Jeoffrin  quietly  trod  the  boulevards  in  the  bright  sun- 
shine. He  seated  himself  before  a  table  in  the  Caf^ 
Rich,  parched  with  thirst.  He  drank,  but  he  was 
always  thirsty.  His  limbs  became  heavy.  He  rose, 
he  entered  another  cafl.  In  a  few  moments  he  entered 
into  conversation  with  a  neighbor.  I  will  give  a  few 
lines  here""  :^. 

"  The  clarnmy  mouth,  feeling  the  necessity  of  repos- 
ing confidence  in  the  waistcoat  of  someone,  after  mut- 
tering to  itself  for  an  instant,  said  : 

"  *  They  guillotined  my  daughter  this  morning.' 
"  And  as  the  great,  red-faced  man  sniggered  in  an 
incredulous  manner,  he  added  : 

"  '  Upon  my  honor  ! '  "  : 

However,  he  dines  that  evening  at  Brebant's.  Then  he 
goes  to  the  Folies  Berg^re.  The  intoxication  became 
greater.  He  could  not  quench  his  thirst.  He  felt  no 
remorse  ;  only  he  had  a  hell  in  his  throat.  The  day 
had  been  warm  ;  a  violent  storm  burst  forth.  He,  with 
the  obstinacy  of  a  drunkard,  must  go  to  Moulineaux, 


244  THE   NOVEL. 

to  see  again  the  model  of  his  balloon,  a  plaything 
which  he  has  in  his  cabinet.  And  this  journey  under 
the  rain  and  in  the  mud  should  be  read.  He  slipped, 
he  fell,  he  picked  himself  up.  The  thunder  rumbled 
overhead,  but  he  had  the  obstinacy  of  a  beast.  At 
last  he  arrives.  "In  the  same  corner  as  formerly  the 
model  of  the  balloon  swayed  to  and  fro,  with  a  singular 
motion,  under   its   covering ;  it   seemed   to   be   alive. 

Jeoffrin  uncovered  it.     It  lifted  itself  up  a  little " 

Here  I  stop.  I  hope  I  have  given  an  idea  of  the 
"  D^vou^e."  I  think  it  a  very  remarkable  beginning. 
M.  Hennique  must  work.  He  has  the  sense  of  reality, 
he  carries  the  gift  of  creation,  he  possesses,  besides,  a 
style  already  very  supple  and  solid.  When  he  shall, 
by  work,  have  disengaged  somewhat  more  distinctly 
his  personal  note  he  will  certainly  be  one  of  the  most 
vigorous  workers  in  the  present  task. 


II. 

J.   K.   HUYSMANS. 

NOTHING  interests  me  so  much  as  the  young 
generation  of  novelists  who  are  growing  up  around 
us  at  present.  It  is  this  generation  who  will  be  the 
future.  Will  it  decide  in  our  favor,  walking  in  the 
broad  path  of  naturalism  opened  by  Balzac,  pushing 
always  further  the  inquiry  opened  upon  man  and 
nature  ?  I  am  indeed  happy  when  I  see  the  analytical 
and  experimental  spirit  taking  firmer  possession  of 
our  young  writers  and  bringing  out  from  the  ranks 
new  fighters,  who  come  to  battle  beside  the  elders  the 
good  fight  for  truth. 

I  wish  the  writers  of  novels  and  absurd  melodramas 
on  the  people  would  conceive  the  idea  of  reading  "  Les 
Soeurs  Vatard  "  of  M.  J.  K.  Huysmans.  They  would 
then  see  the  people  as  they  are.  Without  doubt  they 
would  cry  out  against  its  obscenity,  they  would  affect 
disgusted  airs,  they  would  talk  of  taking  pincers  to 
turn  the  pages  with.  But  with  it  all  it  is  a  little  amus- 
ing comedy  upon  hyprocrisy.  It  is  the  regular  thing 
for  the  dabblers  in  letters  to  insult  the  writers.  I 
should  be  even  very  much  chagrined  if  they  did  not 
insult  M.  Huysmans.  But  I  will  not  worry.  I  know 
they  will  insult  him. 

Nothing  could  be  more  simple  than  this  book.  It  is 
not  even  a  complicated  plot,  for  a  complicated  plot 
necessitates  a  drama.     There   are   two   sisters,  Cdine 

245 


246  THE   NOVEL. 

and  Desir^e,  two  sewing  girls,  who  live  with  a  dropsical 
mother  and  a  lazy,  philosophical  father.  Celine  leads 
a  fast  life.  Desiree,  who  is  keeping  herself  for  a 
husband,  enters  into  an  honorable  love  affair  with 
a  young  workman,  whom  she  leaves  in  the  end  ;  then 
she  marries  another,  and  that  is  all — this  is  the  book. 
This  bareness  of  plot  is  characteristic.  Our  con- 
temporaneous novel  becomes  more  simple  every  day 
from  its  hatred  of  complicated  and  false  plots.  One 
page  of  human  life  and  you  have  enough  to  excite 
interest,  to  stir  up  deep  and  lasting  emotions.  The 
slightest  human  fact  takes  stronger  possession  of  you 
than  any  other  of  no  matter  what  imaginary  combina- 
tion. We  shall  end  by  giving  simple  studies  without 
adventures  or  climax,  the  analysis  of  a  year  of  exist- 
ence, the  story  of  a  passion,  the  biography  of  a 
character,  notes  taken  from  life  and  logically  classified. 

Behold  the  power  of  human  data.  M.  Huysmans 
has  cast  aside  all  arrangements  of  scenes.  No  straining 
of  the  imagination,  but  scenes  in  the  workman's  world, 
Parisian  sights  bound  together  by  the  most  ordinary 
story  in  the  world.  Well,  the  work  is  full  of  intense 
life  ;  it  clutches  you  and  impassions  you  ;  it  raises  the 
most  vexing  questions ;  it  has  the  heat  of  battle  and 
victory.  Whence  comes  this  flame  that  darts  from  it, 
then  ?  From  the  truth  of  the  pictures  and  the  person- 
ality of  the  style,  and  nothing  else.  Modern  art  is 
here  exemplified. 

In  the  first  place,  let  us  look  at  the  surroundings. 
These  ,  surroundings,  these  sewing  girls*  workshops, 
which  M.  Huysmans  paints  with  a  frightful  intensity, 
have  a  terrible  odor.  Doubtless  many  people  would 
say  they  were   exaggerated.     Dare   to  enter  a  sewing 


THE   NOVEL.  247 

woman's  workroom.  Question,  inquire,  and  you  will 
see  that  M.  Huysmans  has  still  remained  outside  of  the 
truth,  because  it  is  impossible  to  print  certain  things. 
All  this  workingman's  atmosphere,  this  corner  of  misery 
and  ignorance,  of  tranquil  degradation  and  naturally 
tainted  air,  has  been  treated  in  the  "  Sceurs  Vatard  " 
with  a  scrupulous  exactitude  and  rare  firmness  of  touch. 

Then  come  the  characters.  They  are  marvelous  por- 
traits in  resemblance  and  in  tone.  You  may  be  certain 
that  they  were  taken  from  nature. 

Here  is  P^re  Vatard,  who  has  only  two  mortifica- 
tions— his  wife's  disease  and  the  conduct  of  his 
d9,ughter  Cdine,  Her  first  fault  filled  him  with  emo- 
tion. I  quote :  "  He  had  a  moment  of  sadness,  but  he 
consoled  himself  quickly.  Desiree  was  old  enough  to 
care  for  him,  and  to  take  her  mother's  place ;  and  as  to 
Celine,  the  best  thing  for  him  to  do  was  to  close  his 
eyes  on  her  conduct.  He  had  acted  a  father's  part, 
moreover;  he  had  reproached  her,  in  court  of  assizes 
terms,  for  the  impropriety  of  her  manners  ;  but  she  had 
become  angry,  had  thrown  the  house  into  a  topsy-turvy 
condition,  threatening  to  overturn  everything  if  she 
were  annoyed  again.  Vatard  then  adopted  an  air  of 
great  indulgence  ;  besides,  his  daughter's  terrible  gabble 
amused  him  in  the  evening."  This  is  complete.  This 
is  the  father  of  our  faubourgs,  such  as  most  commonly 
the  promiscuous  mingling  that  springs  from  poverty 
and  the  degradation  of  his  surroundings,  make  him. 
We  do  not  wish  to  understand  that  the  moral  sense  is 
merely  relative,  and  distorts  and  changes  itself  accord- 
ing to  its  conditions.  What  is  an  abomination  in  the 
middle  class  is  but  a  sad  necessity  with  the  people. 

And  this    Celine,  is  she  strongly  encamped  in  her 


248  THE   NOVEL. 

reality?  She  is  but  one  of  a  thousand.  It  is  not  the 
question  of  an  exception,  but  of  a  majority.  Go  and 
see  for  yourself  instead  of  protesting. 

Desir^e  is  of  a  rarer  type.  But  she  exists,  and  she 
will  console  pure  souls  a  little.  Not  that  at  bottorri 
she  follows  any  conception  of  virtue,  for  she  really  only 
follows  her  instinct.  She  is  an  apathetic  girl,  who  is 
not  drawn  toward  man,  and  whom  her  sister's  example 
restrains.  She  dreams  of  marriage.  Nothing  could  be 
more  admirable  than  her  idyl  with  Auguste^  an  idyl  of 
the  outdoor  boulevard  life,  of  dining  in  a  saloon,  stroll- 
ing in  the  vague  night  of  the  long  avenues,  of  good-by 
kisses  given  behind  the  walls  of  some  unfinished  build- 
ing. No  impurity  of  any  kind.  He  did  not  wish  to 
marry,  but  he  is  captivated,  and  they  held  long  conver- 
sations on  the  future,  filled  with  touching  nonsense,  the 
eternal  duet  which  the  idealists  have  put  in  the  clouds 
and  the  naturalists  place  on  the  sidewalks.  This  home- 
less love  is  just  so  much  the  more  the  tender  that  it  is 
lived,  and  that  you  jostle  it  on  each  boulevard  of  our 
faubourgs. 

I  reach  the  climax,  one  of  the  most  deeply  touching 
passages  that  I  have  read  for  a  long  time.  Little  by 
little  the  two  lovers  have  become  cold.  Desir^e^ 
detained  by  her  mother's  illness,  has  missed  several 
rendezvous,  and  when  she  meets  Auguste  again  they 
are  both  embarrassed.  The  young  man  already  thinks 
of  marrying  elsewhere.  The  young  girl,  now  that  her 
father  has  given  his  consent  to  her  marriage,  listens  to 
her  sister,  who  speaks  of  another  man.  And  it  is  Cdine 
who  brings  matters  to  a  climax  in  provoking  an  expla- 
nation and  a  last  adieu.  The  scene  takes  place  at  the 
doors   of   a  caf^  on   the   corner   of   the   Quay  de  la 


THE   NOVEL.  249 

Tournelle  and  the  Boulevard  Saint  Germain.  I  know 
nothing  so  piercing,  stirring  the  human  heart  as  it  does 
to  its  depths.  All  our  loves,  all  our  joys  dreamed  of 
and  lost,  all  our  hopes  ceaselessly  killed  and  ceaselessly 
being  born  again,  are  they  not  there  in  these  two 
simple  creatures,  who  are  leaving  each  other  after 
having  loved,  who  are  going  far  away  from  one  another 
to  live  a  life  apart  which  they  had  sworn  to  live 
together  ?  They  talk  for  the  last  time  sweetly,  softly, 
they  give  each  other  details  on  their  respective  mar- 
riages, they  thee  and  thou  each  other  again,  and  all  -at 
once  memories  are  awakened ;  they  recall  what  they 
did  on  such  and  such  a  day,  at  such  and  such  an  hour; 
tears  spring  to  their  eyes ;  perhaps  they  would  have 
come  together  again  had  not  CHine  hastened  to  separate 
them.     It  is  ended  ;  they  are  now  two  strangers. 

I  would  like  to  quote  this  episode  entirely  to  make 
my  readers  feel  the  thrill  which  passed  through  me  as 
I  read  it.  What  misery  and  infirmity  are  ours!  How 
everything  falls  from  our  fingers  and  is  broken ! 
These  two  young  creatures  disclose  the  depth  of  our 
frailty  and  our  nothingness. 

The  only  criticism  which  I  shall  make  on  M. 
Huysmans  is  an  abuse  of  rare  words  which  at  moments 
takes  away  from  his  best  analyses  their  living  air. 
These  words  cover  the  first  part  of  the  book  especially. 
I  also  prefer  the  second  part,  which  is  more  simple  and 
more  human.  M.  Huysmans  has  a  style  that  is 
marvelous  in  its  color  and  in  throwing  objects  into 
relief.  He  inserts  into  beings  and  things  an  admirable 
intensity  of  life.  This  is  really  his  principal  quality. 
I  hope  they  will  not  style  him  a  photographer, 
although  his  pictures  are  very  exact.    The  people  who 


250  THE   NOVEL, 

have  made  the  innocent  discovery  that  naturalism  is 
nothing  more  than  photography  will  understand  this 
time,  perhaps,  that,  though  priding  ourselves  upon 
absolute  reality,  we  mean  to  breathe  life  into  our  pro- 
ductions. Thence  comes  the  personal  style  which  is 
the  life  of  our  books.  If  we  refuse  to  admit  imagina- 
tion in  the  sense  of  invention  added  on  to  truth,  we  put 
all  our  creative  force  into  giving  truth  its  proper  life, 
and  the  labor  is  not  an  easy  one,  as  there  are  few 
novelists  who  have  this  gift  of  life. 

There  are  some  marvelous  descriptions  in  "  Les  Sceurs 
Vatard  ":  the  Rue  de  Sevres,  the  Rue  de  la  Gaiety,  all  the 
Quartier  de  Montrouge,  so  thoroughly  characteristic,  the 
sewing  girls'  working-room,  a  frolic  in  a  railway  station, 
in  which  locomotives  were  being  run  in  and  out,  a  ginger- 
bread fair.     The  frame  is  as  truthful  as  the  characters. 

Evidently  they  will  try  to  pretend  that  M.  Huys- 
mans  insults  the  people.  I  know  that  political  school 
which  speculates  in  lies ;  these  men  who  flatter  the 
workmen  in  order  to  gain  their  votes,  who  live  upon 
sores  which  they  do  not  wish  touched.  We  have 
already  told  the  truth  about  the  higher  class  ;  now  we 
will  tell  the  truth  about  the  people  in  order  that  they 
may  be  frightened,  pitied,  and  helped  to  rise.  It  is  a 
work  for  courageous  men.  Yes,  such  is  the  truth ;  a 
great  portion  of  the  people  are  like  this.  And  all  know 
it  well.  They  lie  from  motives  of  policy,  that  is  all. 
But  our  contempt  is  higher  than  their  hypocrisy. 

I  w^ish  to  see  M.  Huysmans  dragged  through  the 
gutters  of  criticism,  denounced  to  the  police  by  his 
colleagues,  to  hear  the  whole  troop  of  the  envious  and 
impotent  ones  howling  at  his  heels.  Then  he  will 
commence  to  feel  his  strength. 


III. 

PAUL    ALEXIS. 

L'  A  FIN  DE  LUCIE  PELLEGRIN  "  is  dedicated 
J  to  me,  and  I  will  not  conceal  that  the  author,  M. 
Paul  Alexis,  is  one  of  my  old  friends,  a  fellow  of  great 
talent,  and  whom  I  think  a  great  deal  of.  It  is  ten 
years  now  since  he  reached  Paris  in  one  of  those  freaks 
of  literary  enthusiasm  which  leave  families  desolate. 
He  came  from  that  Provence  in  which  I  grew  up ;  he 
had  the  great  hopes  and  the  fine  indolence  of  the  Latin 
temperament,  whose  sleep  is  full  of  dreams  of  battles 
and  triumphs.  In  the  first  days  Paris  seems  to  belong 
to  these  young  men,  and  many  fall  asleep.  They  have 
left  their  windows  open,  but  success  has  not  come  in  to 
them.  I  did  not  worry  about  M.  Paul  Alexis;  I  knew 
his  hour  would  come,  because  he  was  that  kind  of  man. 
And  this  is  his  first  book  ;  he  has  made  us  wait  a  little 
while  for  it,  but  it  has  a  flavor  that  indicates  the  analy- 
sist  and  painter  in  his  blood.  He  has  gained  his  foot- 
ing ;  he  needs  but  to  walk  straight  ahead. 

Volumes  of  short  stories  are  not  very  much  in  vogue 
at  present.  The  taste  of  to-day  is  not  for  short  stories, 
which  are  so  delicate  and  of  an  art  so  polished,  some- 
times. It  is  the  same  in  the  theater :  each  debutant 
wishes  to  present  a  piece  of  five  acts  for  his  first,  know- 
ing that  the  public  like  long  plays.  If  M.  Paul  Alexis 
had  spent  on  a  novel  the  talent  which  he  has  put  in 

8SX 


252  THE   NOVEL. 

these  four  stories  which  compose  his  volume,  his  success 
would  have  been  very  great.  This  is  why  I  wish  to 
emphasize  these  stories  in  order  that  they  may  be  read 
and  that  their  high  merit  may  be  felt. 

The  first,  the  one  whose  name  has  given  the  title  to 
the  collection,  is  certainly  the  best,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  its  style  and  artistic  arrangement.  It  is  a 
series  of  little  etchings,  short  chapters,  depicting  the 
agony  of  a  young  girl  dying  for  want  of  a  kindness, 
in  the  midst  of  the  imbecile  gossip  of  four  women  who 
have  been  drawn  to  her  bedside  by  the  curiosity  which 
a  deathbed  excites  in  some  minds.  Nothing  can  be 
more  simple  than  the  subject  and  nothing  stronger  than 
the  vigorous  and  clear  observation.  One  end  of  our 
Parisian  pavements  is  to  be  found  here  analyzed  and 
reproduced  in  an  astonishing  manner.  The  wine  mer- 
chant's little  room  in  which  the  action  passes  ;  the  con- 
versation of  the  four  women,  with  their  ever  increasing 
curiosity  ;  then  the  scene  by  Lucys  bedside,  this  apart- 
ment stripped  of  all  furniture  by  the  creditors,  while  the 
poor  unfortunate  coughs  on  her  hard  bed,  the  dying 
woman  drinking  a  glass  of  absinthe  and  dreaming  of 
her  last  hour — this  whole  tableau  is  depicted  so  truly, 
so  powerfully,  as  to  make  the  picture  an  indelible  and 
definite  one  of  a  corner  of  Paris. 

This  is  an  example  of  the  great  force  of  the  truth. 
It  is  eternal.  The  data  brought  forward  are  incontest- 
able ;  fashion  has  no  power  against  them.  Add  that  an 
artist  is  back  of  the  observer  giving  to  the  observed 
facts  the  fire  of  his  nature,  the  arrangement  of  his 
taste.  It  is  not  an  idealization,  a  distortion ;  it  is  a 
composition  logically  classifying  the  facts  and  giving 
them  value.     The  imagination,  as  I  have  often  said,  is 


THE   NOVEL.  253 

no  longer  an  irregular  invention  launching  out  into  a 
fantastical  folly,  but  a  remembrance  of  witnessed  truths 
and  the  connection  of  ideas  between  them.  For  exam- 
ple, the  imagination  in  "  La  Fin  de  Lucie  Pellegrin  "  is 
shown  in  the  dog,  who  comes  into  the  action  and  gives 
birth  to  her  pups  on  the  bed  while  her  mistress  is  dying 
on  the  ground.  All  the  little  story  is  full  of  a  careful 
art  under  an  apparent  simplicity. 

The  story  which  follows,"  L'  Infortune  de  M.  Fraque," 
is  like  the  plan  outlined  and  completed  in  certain  parts 
of  a  great  observational  novel.  M.  Paul  Alexis,  who 
was  brought  up  in  a  country  town  in  Aix,  has  recalled 
the  remembrances  of  his  childhood  and  has  given  us 
a  very  curious  study  of  the  little  town  of  Noirfond. 
Nothing  could  be  prettier  or  more  original  than  the 
subject,  a  true  history,  bearing  traces  of  hardly  any 
arrangement  in  its  details.  The  trouble  is  a  great  fight 
between  M.  Prague  and  his  wife,  Zoe  de  Grandvaly  a 
terrible  fight,  in  which  the  latter,  after  having  incensed 
her  husband  by  a  series  of  questionable  maneuvers, 
finally  beats  him  completely  by  throwing  herself  heart 
and  soul  into  religion,  and  leaving  all  her  fortune  to  a 
young  priest  with  which  to  build  chapels.  M.  Prague, 
to  protect  himself,  has  no  other  resource  than  to  throw 
himself  into  the  raising  of  pigs  and  to  exaggerate  a 
growing  deafness.  Later,  when  his  wife  devotes  her- 
self to  the  Abbi  de  la  Molle,  M.  Prague  turns  to  the 
Protestant  pastor  Menn :  a  delightful  religious  battle, 
which  ends  the  story. 

We  no  longer  have  the  perfect  little  pen  pictures  of 
"  La  Fin  de  Lucie  Pellegrin  "  here.  You  feel  that  the 
author  has  got  his  breath.  There  are  paragraphs  of 
very  penetrating    analysis   laying    bare   the    country. 


254  THE   NOVEL. 

The  only  fault  in  it  is,  as  I  say,  that  the  subject  has  not 
been  fully  developed  throughout ;  there  is  the  material 
for  a  novel  in  it,  but  certain  scenes  need  greater  space. 
But  it  is  in  this  incomplete  work  that  you  can  foresee 
the  fine  qualities  of  the  novelist,  the  breath,  the  ampli- 
tude, and  the  ability  to  produce  vast  subjects  and  the 
power  to  realize  them.  He  belongs  to  the  strong 
family  of  Balzac.  He  will  certainly  attack  the  great 
questions  of  social  analysis,  and  he  will  not  dally  in 
the  exquisite  pictures,  in  the  jewels  of  rhetoric  that  all 
beginners  end  by  turning  out  to-day.  It  is  by  strong 
studies  of  nature  and  man  that  our  young  writers  will 
rise. 

With  "  Les  Femmes  du  P^re  Lef^vre  "  we  come  back 
to  what  I  shall  call  the  fantasy  founded  on  truth.  But 
the  subject  is  so  pretty  that  this  little  story  is,  perhaps, 
the  happiest  of  the  book.  It  is  a  simple  fact,  hardly 
an  anecdote.  The  students  in  a  small  town  are  dreaming 
of  giving  a  ball  the  Thursday  of  Mi-Careme,  but  come 
to  a  full  stop  for  entire  want  of  ladies,  and  are  then 
saved  by  an  old  officer,  who  promises  to  obtain  some 
ladies  from  Marseilles,  and  finally  lands  in  the  city 
thirteen  frights,  whose  presence  upsets  the  inhabitants. 
This  is  all  the  plot  there  is ;  it  is  nothing,  and  yet  it  is 
decidedly  comic  in  its  charming  irony,  in  the  correct- 
ness of  its  observation  and  its  rendering.  No  exagger- 
ation to  force  a  laugh,  only  a  jest  which  enlivens  one 
discreetly.  The  comical  side  of  it  is  in  its  truth,  in  the 
impatience  and  anxiety  of  the  young  men  from  lack 
of  girls,  going  to  each  train  vainly  expecting  Pire 
Lefevre,  who  does  not  come;  then  the  arrival  of  these 
ladies,  in  the  midst  of  cries  of  enthusiasm  from  the 
young    men ;    the   lazy   curiosity   of    the    bourgeoises 


THE   NOVEL.  255 

stationed  in  front  of  the  Cafe  des  Quatre-Billiards ; 
the  complete  topsy-turvy  condition  of  the  city,  where 
the  train  of  women's  dresses  after  the  ball  was  heard 
and  felt  for  months. 

I  have  used  the  words  "  fantasy  founded  on  truth." 
We  have,  in  the  actual  naturalistic  current,  poems  based 
on  the  truth,  which  mark  the  epoch.  These  are  no 
longer  airy  constructions  of  sylphs  and  fairies,  imagina- 
tions floating  in  an  immaterial  world  ;  they  are  true  facts 
and  real  creatures,  but  presented  in  a  form  of  melancholy 
or  railing  animation  arranged  so  as  to  obtain  the  great- 
est possible  effect,  and  in  such  a  manner  that  observa- 
tion and  analysis  never  depart  from  nature.  You  might 
even  say  that  the  generation  of  novelists  who  to-day 
follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Balzac  and  Victor  Hugo  are 
also  poets  of  the  truth.  And  I  mention  **  Les  Femmes 
du  Pere  Lefevre "  as  one  of  those  charming  fantasies 
founded  strictly  on  realities,  illuminated  by  the  flame  of 
observation  and  analysis. 

The  last  story,  "Le  Journal  de  M.  Mure,"  leads  us 
back  to  a  severe  analysis.  The  plot  is  again  of  the 
simplest  nature,  for  the  point  is  here  a  psychological 
and  physiological  study.  M,  Mure^  a  magistrate  of  a 
little  city,  watches  Hd^ne,  the  daughter  of  Captain 
Dervalj  grow  to  womanhood.  Little  by  little  he  becomes 
completely  infatuated  with  this  young  girl ;  he  never 
has  the  courage  to  declare  himself,  and  his  whole  life 
passes  in  a  longing  for  this  woman  whom  he  sees  pos- 
sessed by  others.  First  he  marries  her  to  a  silly  substi- 
tute, M.  Moreau ;  then  he  has  the  misery  of  knowing 
of  her  flight  with  a  M.  de  Vaiidrieilles,  with  whom  she 
lives  in  Paris ;  then  she  falls  lower,  even  to  the  gutter ; 
finally  he  reconciles  her  to  her  husband,  and  dies  in  the 


256  THE  NOVEL. 

joy  of  her  return  and  her  triumph,  surrounded  by  the 
society  of  the  little  town  which  she  had  so  dreadfully 
scandalized  in  her  younger  days.  This  poor  M.  Mure 
is  but  a  continual  miscarriage  his  whole  life  long.  He 
is  a  study  of  paternity  in  love.  He  makes  others  happy 
without  ever  gaining  any  satisfaction  himself ;  and  in 
this  fact  lies  the  great  originality  of  the  work — an 
analysis  of  infinite  delicacy :  the  pleasure  of  working 
for  Hdines  felicity,  saddened  by  the  jealousy  of  know- 
ing she  belonged  to  another ;  all  sorts  of  half  avowals, 
abnegations,  and  regrets ;  an  exquisite  prudery  troubled 
by  a  persistent  desire,  even  in  his  old  age ;  then  a  final 
resignation  with  solitary  contentment.  There  is  in  all 
this  a  very  personal  creation. 

This  last  story  is  a  shortened  novel  like  "  LTnfortune 
de  M.  Fraque."  Only  it  is  barer  and  of  a  much  broader 
conception,  according  to  my  way  of  thinking.  At  this 
time  the  evolution  which  is  taking  place  in  the  novel 
seems  to  point  more  especially  to  this  simplicity  of 
daily  life,  to  the  study  of  human  miscarriage  so  mag- 
nificently analyzed  by  Gustave  Flaubert  in  his  "  Edu- 
cation Sentimentale."  It  is  the  inevitable  reaction 
against  the  passionate  exaggerations  of  romanticism. 
You  throw  yourself  into  the  everyday  routine  of  exist- 
ence, you  show  the  emptiness  and  the  sadness  of  all 
things,  so  as  to  protest  against  the  hollow  deifications 
and  the  false  sentiments  of  the  romantic  works.  This  is 
excellent,  for  it  is  by  this  means  that  we  shall  return  to 
a  simple  and  true  art,  to  human  sentiments,  and  to  a  log- 
ical language.  I  speak  now  of  method,  of  the  good 
and  bad  paths,  always  taking  into  consideration  the 
question   of  temperament. 

This,  then,  is  M.  Paul  Alexis'  book.     They  will  class- 


THE  NOVEL.  257 

ify  it  as  follows :  It  is  the  work  of  a  young  naturalist, 
one  of  those  dreadful  naturalists  who  respect  nothing 
and  who  copy  one  another.  The  current  criticism,  in  its 
hatred  and  carelessness  of  justice  and  truth,  repeats 
these  ready-made  judgments,  which  are  radically  false. 
The  truth  is  that  those  young  novelists,  whom  they 
think  to  crush  under  the  epithet  of  common  naturalists, 
are  precisely  of  the  most  opposite  temperament  you 
could  possibly  imagine  ;  not  one  has  the  same  person- 
ality, not  one  looks  at  humanity  from  the  same  angle, 
and  yet  they  are  called  the  fervent  disciples  of  the  same 
religion,  with  this  fine  ?^;2intelligence  which  distin- 
guishes our  sorry  criticism  of  the  present  time.  One 
day  I  will  certainly  make  a  study  of  these  novelists,  to 
point  out  their  dissimilarity.  For  a  long  time  it  has 
enraged  me  to  see  the  perfect  mess  of  judgments  which 
have  been  passed  upon  them.  But  just  now  there  is 
but  the  question  of  the  author  of  "  La  Fin  de  Lucie 
Pellegrin." 

M.  Alexis  is,  beyond  everything  else,  sensitive. 
With  him  analysis  is  preceded  by  sensation.  He  needs 
to  see  in  order  to  know,  to  be  touched  in  order  to 
paint.  His  book  is  entirely  composed  of  reminiscences. 
He  relates  the  stories  which  have  happened  around 
him,  hardly  modifying  them.  Evidently  he  must  work 
from  nature ;  he  dissects  only  people  he  has  known 
and  associated  with.  I  do  not  think  he  will  ever  con- 
ceive any  great  figures,  types  drawn  from  his  own 
brain ;  but  he  will  employ  with  a  true  power  of  pene- 
tration the  data  which  life  will  furnish  him  with. 

Add  that  he  is  an  artist.  I  mean  by  that  a  man  of 
style  and  symmetr>^  In  the  "  Journal  de  M.  Mure," 
the  last  story  of  the  series,  the  broadest  in  conception 


258  THE   NOVEL. 

and  composition,  the  arrangement  shows  a  highly 
evolved  art,  under  the  apparent  confusion  of  these 
short  or  long  notes  thrown  on  the  paper  at  all  hours  and 
all  times.  As  I  have  said,  it  is  no  longer  a  composi- 
tion, it  is  a  classification.  But  the  temperament  of  the 
writer  asserts  itself  not  less  in  a  vivid  perception  of  the 
facts  and  the  putting  forth  of  thoughtful  observations. 
M.  Pawl  Alexis  must  write  a  novel,  for  he  is  lost  in  a 
short  story,  and  he  has  in  him  the  making  of  great 
works.  The  crudities  and  cruelties  of  analysis  in  his 
first  book  will  perhaps  provoke  a  great  many  people, 
but  I  am  certain  that  all  will  recognize  the  solid  back 
of  an  originality  which  already  makes  itself  felt  with 
great  force. 


HUMAN   DOCUMENTS. 

IN  the  essay  which  I  devoted  to  M.  Huysmans' 
remarkable  novel,  "  Les  Soeurs  Vatard,"  I  wrote 
this  phrase  :  "  We  shall  end  by  giving  simple  studies, 
without  adventures  or  climax ;  the  analysis  of  a  year 
of  an  existence,  the  story  of  a  passion,  the  biography 
of  a  character,  notes  taken  from  life  and  logically 
classified."  I  do  not  doubt  but  that  this  phrase  will 
scandalize  a  great  many  of  my  colleagues.  Some  will 
be  angry,  some  will  make  fun  of  it ;  all  will  accuse  me 
of  denying  imagination,  of  killing  invention,  of  urging 
as  a  rule  that  novels  should  be  ordinary  and  vulgar. 

What  always  puzzles  me  is  the  manner  in  which  my 
words  are  read.  For  more  than  ten  years  I  have  been 
repeating  the  same  things,  and  I  must  really  express 
myself  very  badly,  for  the  readers  are  very  rare  who 
will  read  "  white  "  when  I  write  "  white."  Ninety-nine 
people  out  of  a  hundred  persist  in  reading  "  black." 
I  will  not  utter  hard  words  about  stupidity  and  unfair- 
ness.    We  will  admit  that  their  sight  is  impaired. 

For  example,  do  they  not  say  foolish  enough  things 
about  this  poor  naturalism  ?  If  I  were  to  gather 
together  all  that  has  been  published  on  this  question, 
I  should  raise  a  monument  to  human  imbecility. 
Listen  to  what  everybody  is  saying :  "  Ah,  yes,  those 
naturalists,  those  men  with  dirty  hands,  who  want  to 
have  all  the  novels  written  in  slang,  and  who  choose 
deliberately  the  most   disgusting  subjects  among  the 


26o  THE   NOVEL, 

lower  classes  and  in  bad  districts."  But  not  at  all ;  you 
lie  !  You  make  naturalism,  in  a  miserable  fashion,  a 
question  of  rhetoric,  while  I  have  always  striven  to 
make  it  a  question  of  method.  I  have  called  naturalism 
the  great  analytical  and  experimental  movement,  which 
started  in  the  eighteenth  century  and  which  is  growing 
grandly  in  ours.  It  is  stupid  to  pretend  that  I  restrict 
the  horizon,  that  I  insist  upon  finding  our  literature  in 
the  faubourgs,  that  I  have  reduced  it  to  obscene  lan- 
guage, while,  on  the  contrary,  I  maintain  the  literary 
domain  is  extending  more  and  more  and  mingling  with 
the  scientific  domain. 

"  L'Assommoir,"  always  "  L'Assommoir  " !  They  are 
trying  to  make  some  kind  of  absurd  Gospel  of  this  book. 
Oh  !  I  wrote  ten  novels  before  that  one,  and  I  will 
write  ten  more.  I  have  taken  the  whole  of  society  for 
my  subject ;  I  have  already  placed  my  characters  in 
twenty  different  worlds,  even  in  that  of  dreams.  Do 
not  say  that  I  have  the  idiotic  pretension  of  only 
depicting  life  in  the  gutter.  Have  eyes ;  see  clearly. 
That  does  not  even  need  intelligence  ;  it  is  sufificient 
to  ascertain  the  facts.  And,  above  all,  do  not  accuse 
me  of  inventing  a  literary  religion,  because  that  is  not 
true,  because  I  am  simply  a  critic  studying  his  epoch, 
going  back  to  the  last  century  to  search  for  its  sources 
in  Balzac's  novels,  and  then  tracing  it  down  to  our  own 
days,  to  find  out  what  the  movement  that  the  author  of 
the  "  Comedie  Humaine  "  has  determined  in  our  litera- 
ture consists  of.  This  is  my  task.  Naturalism  does 
not  belong  to  me,  it  belongs  to  the  century.  It  acts  in 
society,  in  the  sciences,  in  letters  and  in  art,  and  in 
politics.     It  is  the  power  of  our  age. 

Have  I   made  myself  understood  this  time  ?     Will 


THE   NOVEL.  261 

they  still  shut  naturalism  within  the  four  walls  of  the 
sink  of  the  Ambiguous  ?     In  truth,  it  is  irritating. 

I  allow  myself  to  get  angry,  and  that  is  wrong.  Let 
me  come  back  to  imagination  in  the  novel.  The  idea 
that  the  novel  tends  toward  becoming  simply  a  mono- 
graph, a  page  of  existence,  the  recital  of  one  single 
fact,  has  seemed  monstrous  and  revolutionary.  In 
truth,  our  story-tellers,  with  the  complications  of 
their  soporific  stories,  must  have  befogged  their  brains. 
Without  going  back  to  "  La  Nouvelle  Heloise,"  to 
"Werther,"  to  "  Ren6,"  which  are  but  the  analyses 
of  a  psychological  fact,  I  will  cite  M.  de  Goncourt, 
in  "  Manette  Salomon  "  and  "  Mme.  Gervaisais,"  two 
novels  published  ten  years  ago,  which  owe  their  interest 
to  no  plot,  and  are  of  value  only  as  the  study  of  a  place 
or  a  character. 

M.  Edmond  de  Goncourt  is  about  to  publish  a  new 
work,  *'  Les  Freres  Zemganno."  It  is  the  story  of  two 
circus  jumpers.  But,  fearing  that  I  may  be  suspected 
of  analyzing  the  book  from  my  point  of  view,  I  prefer 
to  take  the  account  of  it  from  a  charming  article  which 
M.  Alphonse  Daudet  has  just  published. 

"  The  subject, "  he  says,  "  is  very  simple  :  a  life 
devoted  to  art  and  love.  The  elder  becomes  father 
and  master  to  the  younger.  Life  goes  on,  new  tricks 
astonish  Paris ;  then  comes  fortune,  almost  glory.  Then 
one  day  the  spite  of  an  equestrienne  causes  the  younger 
one  to  miss  the  trick  and  throws  him  in  the  sawdust, 
both  legs  broken,  and  the  elder,  not  without  regret  and 
bitterness,  renounces  his  art,  swearing  to  the  invalid 
to  lighten  his  sickly  repinings,  that  not  with  another, 
nor  alone,  would  he  ever  perform  again.  No  other 
denouement.     Reality  has  very  nearly  as  much." 


262  THE   NOVEL. 

This  is  an  excellent  resume.  I  said  no  more  for  the 
"Soeurs  Vatard  "  of  M.  Huysmans.  I  admit,  to-day, 
that  I  was  thinking  of  M.  de  Goncourt's  works  as  I 
wrote  my  phrase  on  the  tendencies  which  the  novelists 
appeared  to  have  toward  simplifying  more  and  more 
the  plot  and  suppressing  theatrical  effect  and  climax, 
giving  to  their  readers  only  their  notes  on  life,  without 
binding  them  by  any  arrangement  whatsoever.  Per- 
sonally, I  will  add  that  I  am  in  favor  of  more  complete 
studies,  embracing  a  larger  amount  of  human  data, 
without  inferring  that  they  can,  in  my  opinion,  exhaust 
a  subject.  I  was  trying,  then,  only  to  state  a  fact.  And 
by  reason  of  this  strange  phenomenon  in  their  vision 
of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  this  is  what  they  read 
in  my  article  :  that  I  wished  to  suppress  imagination  and 
make  vulgarity  the  rule  in  novels. 

You  must  understand  what  I  mean  by  the  words 
imagination  and  vulgarity.  Certainly  I  reject  imagina- 
tion if  you  mean  by  that  the  inventions  of  the  news- 
paper story-tellers,  although  such  writers  be  endowed 
with  the  genius  of  their  kind,  and  even. if  they  are  called 
Alexander  Dumas  and  Eugene  Sue.  Nothing  is  more 
monotonous,  in  short,  than  their  adventures.  They  have 
one  or  two  dozen  combinations  which  reappear  con- 
tinually. It  is  a  mechanical  theater,  of  which  they  turn 
the  crank  in  the  side,  and  the  same  characters  reappear 
periodically,  under  other  names  and  in  other  costumes. 
I  will  not  speak  of  the  nothingness  of  all  this.  At  the 
bottom  of  all  their  long  speeches  there  is  only  empti- 
ness. They  are  read  as  you  play  with  a  musical  box, 
to  pass  away  an  hour. 

Imagination,  the  faculty  of  imagining,  is  not  wholly 
in   that.     There  it  has  only  its    coarsest   application. 


THE   NOVEL.  263 

To  invent  a  story  out  of  the  whole  cloth  and  push  it 
to  the  last  limits  of  probability,  to  interest  by  the  most 
incredible  complications,  nothing  can  be  easier,  noth- 
ing more  within  the  reach  of  all  the  world.  On  the 
contrary,  take  facts,  facts  that  you  have  seen  around 
you,  classify  them  according  to  a  logical  order,  fill  up 
the  gaps  by  intuition,  obtain  the  marvelous  result  of 
giving  life  to  human  data,  a  life  fitting  and  complete, 
adapted  to  certain  surroundings,  and  you  will  have 
exercised  in  a  superior  manner  your  faculties  of  imagi- 
nation. Well !  our  naturalistic  novel  is  properly 
the  product  of  the  classification  of  the  notes  and  of 
the  intuition  which  completes  them.  Look  at  Balzac's 
"  Femme  de  Trente  Ans  "  and  "  Eugenie  Grandet " ; 
any  novelist  whatever  could  have  put  his  name  to 
"  La  Femme  de  Trente  Ans,"  while  it  would  have 
taken  a  naturalistic  novelist  to  write  "  Eugenie  Gran- 
det." The  reason  is  that  the  first  of  these  novels  was 
invented,  while  the  other  was  seen  and  divined. 

I  come  to  this  reproach  of  commonplaceness.  There 
is  first  a  question  of  appreciation  here.  It  is  difficult 
to  specifiy  what  is  commonplace.  You  will  say  that 
what  you  see  everyday  is  commonplace.  And  what  if, 
seeing  it  every  day,  it  had  never  been  looked  at,  and 
what  if  you  can  draw  superb  and  unknown  truths  from 
it !  This  is  the  story  of  the  great  scientific  movement 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Nobody  thought  of  analyz- 
ing air,  because  air  was  commonplace ;  Gay-Lussac 
analyzed  it  and  founded  modern  chemistry.  We  are 
then  accused  of  being  commonplace  because  we  take 
up  the  study  of  truth  from  the  beginning,  from  nature 
and  from  man.  But  then  there  immediately  comes  up 
the  question  of  form.     Bon  Dieu  !  tell  me  how  many 


264  THE   NOVEL. 

people  have  accused  M.  Huysmans  of  being  common- 
place? Why,  he  is  rather  an  exaggerated  poet,  a 
colorist  of  the  Holland  school,  who  has  let  himself  slip 
into  a  general  debauch  of  violent  tones.  This  is  what 
I  reproach  him  with.  If  he  is  commonplace  as  a 
writer,  then  we  must  accuse  the  novelists  of  the  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes  of  reveling  in  orgies  of  style.  No, 
no !  the  contemporaneous  naturalistic  novel  is  not 
commonplace,  it  is  not  enough  so,  and  I  myself  have 
complained  of  it ;  but  they  did  not  understand  me,  as 
usual.  The  idea  that  I  could  be  a  purist,  has  made 
many  laugh. 

I  wish,  however,  that  they  would  cease  to  ascribe  to 
me  opinions  which  are  not  mine.  I  do  not  set  up 
the  commonplace ;  as  a  rule  I  do  not  reject  imagina- 
tion, above  all,  deduction,  which  is  its  most  elevated  and 
strongest  form.  It  is  like  the  horror  for  poetry  which 
they  credit  me  with.  Have  I  ever  written  two  lines 
which  were  silly  enough  to  call  for  the  suppression  of 
poets?  When  and  where  have  they  surprised  me  in 
the  act  of  clouding  the  sky  of  fantasy,  of  denying  in 
man  the  necessity  to  lie,  to  idealize,  to  fly  from  reality? 
I  accept  man  in  his  entirety,  only  I  explain  him  by 
science.  I  have  said  twenty  times  that  it  made  me 
angry  to  be  deceived,  and  nothing  more. 

If  you  are  a  writer  of  dramatic  fantasies,  a  poet, 
write  me  some  fairy  tales,  and  I  shall  take  great  pleas- 
ure in  reading  them.  But  if  in  a  drama  or  a  comedy 
you  pretend  to  give  me  men,  and  your  men  are  things  of 
straw,  you  make  me  angry.  The  same  way  in  a  novel ; 
write  poems  freely  if  you  experience  a  need  to  idealize  ; 
Do  not  give  me  grotesque  and  impossible  stories  if  you 
wish  me  to  believe  that  all  this  has  happened  in  this 


THE   NOVEL.  265 

way.  Give  me  no  illegitimate  and  hypocritical  works, 
that  is  all ;  no  inacceptable  mixture  ;  no  monsters,  half 
real  and  half  fabulous ;  no  pretense  of  arguments,  based 
upon  lies,  which  reach  a  moral  and  patriotic  conclusion. 
You  are  either  an  observer  who  gathers  together  human 
data  or  you  are  a  poet  who  tells  me  your  dreams,  and  I 
only  ask  from  you  genius  in  order  to  testify  my  admi- 
ration. I  add  that  the  present  evolution  operates  evi- 
dently in  favor  of  the  observer,  of  the  naturalistic  novel- 
ist, and  I  explain  this  by  social  and  scientific  reasons. 
But  I  accept  the  whole,  I  rejoice  in  the  whole,  because 
I  love  life  after  the  manner  of  a  savant  who  observes  it 
from  day  to  day. 

Thus,  for  example,  M.  Edmond  de  Goncourt,  in 
"  Les  Fr^res  Zemganno,"  was  taken  with  the  original 
whim  of  deserting  the  immediate  reality  in  order  to 
enter  the  domain  of  dreams.  After jthe  technical  novel 
of  "  La  Fille  Elisa  "  he  wished  to  show  that  he  could 
flee  from  and  get  away  from  mere  observation.  His 
new  book  belongs  to  poetical  psychology,  if  I  may 
be  permitted  to  use  this  term.  Well,  nothing  could  be 
better ;  I  approve  of  this  attempt.  It  will  be  curious  to 
learn  how  one  of  the  authors  of  "  Germinie  Lacerteux  " 
thinks  and  writes  under  the  garb  of  poetical  prose. 
The  honest,  respectable  citizens  whom  "  La  Fille  Elisa 
frightened  will  see  that,  when  we  wish  to,  we  can  make 
women  weep  and  young  girls  dream.  Did  not  the 
unworthy  author  of  "  L'Assommoir  "  write  the  second 
part  of  "  La  Faute  de  I'Abb^  Mouret,"  a  Garden  of 
Eden  idyl,  a  species  of  parable  about  ideal  loves  in 
pastures  which  never  were  ? 

Fourteen  years  ago,  in  1865,*  I  was  the  only  critic  who 

*  This  cs»ay  was  originally  published  in  1879. 


266  THE   NOVEL. 

dared  to  call  "  Germinie  Lacerteux  **  a  ckef-d'ceuvre. 
To-day  I  announce  the  coming  appearance  of  "  Les 
Fr^res  Zemganno  "  as  the  great  literary  event  of  the 
season.  But  I  do  not  wish  them  to  make  use  of  the 
last  work  to  attack  the  first.  I  will  go  further.  Let 
one  read  "  Les  Fr^res  Zemganno  "  and  "  Les  Soeurs 
Vatard  " :  there  is  between  these  two  productions  only 
this  difference :  one  is  the  work  of  a  master,  the  other 
that  of  a  beginner.  I  like  them  because  they  both 
start  out  from  the  same  literar>^  method  :  one  through 
a  dream,  the  other  through  reality,  and  both  are  filled 
with  life. 


"LES   FRERES   ZEMGANNO." 

THE  PREFACE. 

1WILL  first  touch  upon  the  preface  which  the  author 
has  written  for  his  book.  This  preface,  which  has 
all  the  importance  of  a  manifesto,  is  excellent.  Only 
as  it  appeared  to  me  a  little  succinct  I  wish  to  be  per- 
mitted to  comment  upon  it  here.  I  desire,  while 
developing  the  ideas  of  this  preface,  to  prevent  the 
public  from  giving  a  meaning  to  the  opinions  expressed 
by  M.  Goncourt  which  never  entered  into  his  thought. 
The  thesis  maintained  by  the  author  is  that  the 
decisive  triumph  of  the  naturalistic  formula  will  be 
complete  when  it  shall  have  been  applied  to  the  study 
of  the  higher  classes  of  society.  He  says  as  follows : 
"We  can  publish  '  Assommoirs'  and  books  like  '  Ger- 
minie  Lacerteux,*  and  by  them  agitate,  stir  up,  and 
excite  one  part  of  the  public.  Yes,  but  to  my  thinking 
the  success  of  these  books  are  only  brilliant  skirmishes 
by  the  advance  guard,  and  the  great  battle  which  will 
determine  the  victory  of  realism  and  naturalism,  and  of 
analysis  according  to  nature  in  literature,  will  not  be 
fought  on  the  ground  that  the  authors  of  these  two 
novels  have  chosen.  The  day  in  which  the  cruel 
analyses  which  my  friend  M.  Zola  and  perhaps  myself 
have  brought  to  bear  upon  the  picture  of  life  in  our 
lower  classes  shall  be  taken  up  by  a  writer  of  talent,  and 
employed  in  the  reproduction  of  fashionable  men  and 
women,  placed   amid    surroundings   of  education   and 

267 


268  THE    NOVEL. 

distinction — on  that  day  only  classicism  and  its  follow- 
ing will  be  killed." 

This  could  not  be  better  put.  I  have  expressed 
these  ideas  a  hundred  times.  I  am  worn  out  repeating 
that  naturalism  is  a  formula,  and  not  any  mode  of 
expression ;  that  it  does  not  consist  of  any  form  of 
language,  but  in  the  scientific  method  applied  to 
surroundings  and  characters.  From  this  it  becomes 
evident  that  naturalism  does  not  confine  itself  to  a 
choice  of  subjects ;  in  the  same  manner  that  the  savant 
applies  his  magnifying  glass  as  much  to  the  rose  as  to 
the  nettle,  the  naturalistic  novelist  has  for  his  field  of 
observation  the  whole  of  society,  from  the  salon  to  the 
hovel.  Fools  alone  make  naturalism  the  literature  of 
the  slums.  M.  Edmond  de  Goncourt  expresses  in  an 
excellent  manner  this  very  fine  thought,  that  for  a 
certain  prejudiced  public,  frivolous,  unintelligent,  if  you 
wish,  the  naturalistic  formula  will  never  be  accepted 
until  this  public  shall  perceive  by  examples  that  it  is  a 
question  of  a  formula,  of  a  general  method  which  is  as 
applicable  as  well  to  duchesses  as  to  grisettes. 

For  the  rest,  M.  de  Goncourt  completes  and 
explains  his  idea  by  adding  that  naturalism  "  has  not 
in  fact  only  the  mission  of  describing  what  is  low,  what 
is  repugnant,  what  is  disgusting ;  it  has  come  into  this 
world  to  define  in  artistic  expression  that  which  is 
elevated,  pretty,  and  noble,  and,  still  more,  to  give  to 
the  world  a  picture  of  the  doings  and  appearances  of 
refined  men  and  women  and  their  rich  and  sumptuous 
surroundings;  but  it  will  do  this  in  a  cons'stent, 
vigorous,  unconventional,  and  unimaginative  study  of 
beauty,  a  study  such  as  the  new  school  has  just  made 
these  few  years  back  of  ugliness," 


THE    NOVEL.  269 

All  this  is  perfectly  clear.  People  affect  to  see  but 
our  brutalities,  they  pretend  to  be  convinced  that  we 
shut  ourselves  up  in  the  horrible  ;  all  this  is  a  maneuver 
on  the  part  of  our  enemies,  made  in  very  bad  faith. 
We  wish  to  depict  the  whole  world,  we  mean  to  submit 
to  our  analysis  beauty  as  well  as  ugliness.  I  will  add 
that  M.  de  Goncourt  might  have  been  a  little  less  modest 
for  us.  Why  should  he  leave  it  to  be  imagined  we 
have  only  depicted  ugliness  ?  Why  does  he  not  show 
us  carrying  out  the  same  work  under  all  conditions,  in 
all  classes  of  society  at  the  same  time  ?  Our  adversaries 
alone  play  us  this  villainous  trick  of  only  speaking  of  our 
"  Germinie  Lacerteux  "  and  our  "  Assommoirs,"  keep- 
ing silent  about  our  other  works.  We  must  protest,  we 
must  show  the  general  whole  of  our  efforts.  I  will  not 
speak  of  myself ;  I  will  not  recall  the  fact  that  I  have 
undertaken  to  show  in  a  series  of  novels  the  picture  of 
a  whole  epoch  ;  I  will  not  draw  attention  to  the  fact 
that  *'  L'Assommoir  "  will  remain  a  single  note  in  the 
midst  of  twenty  other  volumes — I  will  content  myself 
with  mentioning  "  La  Cur^e,"  in  which  I  have  already 
tried  to  picture  a  little  corner  of  what  is  "  pretty  "  and 
what  is  "  refreshing."  But  I  shall  insist  upon  doing 
M.  de  Goncourt  justice ;  I  wish  to  show  him  writing 
"  Ren^e  Mauperin "  after  "  Germinie  Lacerteux," 
touching  the  higher  classes  after  the  people,  and  writing 
a  chef-d'ceuvre  after  a  chef-d'oeuvre. 

What  an  exquisite  and  deep  study  "  Renee  Mauperin  " 
is !  We  are  no  longer  in  the  midst  of  the  roughness 
and  savageness  of  the  lowest  class.  We  have  gone  up 
into  the  middle  class,  and  the  conditions  become  terri- 
bly complicated.  I  know  very  well  that  this  is  not  yet 
the  aristocracy,  but  it  is,  at  any  rate,  "  an  environment 


270  THE    NOVEL. 

of  education  and  distinction."  At  this  time  the  classes 
are  so  intermingled,  the  pure  aristocracy  hold  so  small 
a  place  in  the  social  machinery,  that  the  study  of  it  is 
not  very  interesting.  M.  de  Goncourt,  when  he  asks 
for  the  aspects  and  profiles  of  refined  people  and  costly 
things,  evidently  speaks  of  the  Parisian  world,  so  ele- 
gant, so  modern,  and  so  variegated.  He  has  already 
presented  one  side  of  this  Parisian  world  in  the  publi- 
cation of  "  Renee  Mauperin,"  fourteen  years  ago.  In 
that  book  will  be  found  all  that  his  great  modesty  asks 
from  those  writers  of  talent  who  are  to  come  after  him. 
Why,  then,  should  he  wish  to  remain  the  author  of 
"  La  Fille  Elisa "  and  "  Germinie  Lacerteux,"  when 
he  has  written  "  Ren^e  Mauperin  "  and  "  Manette 
Salomon,"  that  other  chef-d' oeuvre  of  rare  and  vigorous 
charm  ? 

It  is  true  that  M.  de  Goncourt  has  left  one  point  in 
obscurity,  which  it  is  necessary  clearly  to  establish.  He 
demands  "  a  well  carried  out  study,  rigorous,  non-conven- 
tional, and  non-imaginative,  of  beauty  "  ;  and  further  on 
he  adds  that  human  data  alone  make  good  books — 
"  books  which  set  mankind,  as  it  truly  is,  standing 
squarely  on  its  legs " — an  opinion  which  I  have 
defended  for  years  past.  There  is  the  tool,  the  nat- 
uralistic formula,  that  we  can  apply  to  all  conditions 
and  to  all  characters.  Then  the  worst  of  it  is  that  we 
at  once  reach  the  human  beast  under  the  black  broad- 
cloth coat  as  well  as  under  the  blouse.  Let  us  look 
at  "Germinie  Lacerteux."  The  analysis  is  cruel  there,  for 
it  uncovers  terrible  sores.  But  carry  the  same  analysis 
into  a  higher  class,  into  educated  and  distinguished 
surroundings ;  if  you  tell  everything,  if  you  probe 
below  the  skin,  if  you  expose  man  and  woman  in  their 


THE   NOVEL.  271 

nakedness,  your  analysis  will  be  as  cruel  there  as  with 
the  lower  classes,  for  it  will  only  mean  a  change  of 
scene  and  many  more  hypocrisies.  When  M.  de  Gon- 
court  shall  desire  to  depict  a  Parisian  drawing  room 
and  to  tell  the  truth,  he  will  certainly  have  some  pretty 
descriptions  to  make  of  beautiful  toilets,  flowers,  polite- 
nesses, refinements,  with  an  infinite  variety  of  shadings. 
Only  if  he  undresses  his  characters,  if  ^^he  passes  from 
the  sa/on  to  the  bedchamber,  if  he  enters  into  the  inti- 
macy, into  the  private  and  hidden  life  of  every  day, 
he  must  dissect  monstrosities  so  much  more  unpardon- 
able from  the  fact  that  they  have  grown  and  been 
cultivated  in  a  richer  soil. 

And  besides,  is  not  "  Ren^e  Mauperin  "  a  proof  of 
what  I  have  just  said  ?  Is  not  the  refined  wickedness  of 
that  book  much  more  disgusting  than  the  instinctive  and 
desperate  dissoluteness  oi  Germmie  LacerUux,  this 
poor  sick  girl  who  was  dying  for  want  of  love?  Yet 
M.  de  Goncourt  has  surfeited  us  with  delicate  tints  in 
"  Renee  Mauperin.  **  The  surroundings  are  luxurious  ; 
they  smell  good.  The  characters  are  respectable  ;  they 
do  not  talk  slang,  and  they  are  careful  of  all  the  pro- 
prieties. 

It  is  necessary  to  state  this  plainly.  Our  analysis 
will  always  be  cruel,  because  our  analysis  goes  to  the 
bottom  of  the  human  body.  High  and  low  we  throw 
ourselves  at  the  beast.  Certainly  there  are  veils  more 
or  less  numerous,  but  when  we  have  described  them 
one  after  another,  and  when  we  have  lifted  up  the 
last  one,  we  see  behind  it  more  dirt  than  flowers.  This 
is  why  our  books  are  so  black,  so  severe.  We  do  not 
seek  for  what  is  repugnant — we  find  it ;  and  if  we  try 
to  hide  it  we  must  lie  about  it,  or   at   least    leave  it 


272  THE    NOVEL. 

incomplete.  The  day  that  M.  de  Goncourt  conceives 
the  notion  of  writing  a  novel  on  the  fashionable  world, 
wherein  all  will  be  pretty,  or  where  there  will  be  no 
bad  odors,  that  day  he  will  have  to  content  himself 
with  painting  light  Parisian  pictures,  sketches  made 
on  the  surface,  observations  taken  in  the  vestibule.  If 
he  goes  down  into  the  psychological  and  physiological 
study  of  characters,  if  he  goes  below  the  laces  and 
jewels,  well !  he  will  write  a  novel  which  will  poison  the 
minds  of  delicate  readers,  and  which  they  will  look 
upon  as  frightful  lies,  for  nothing  seems  less  truthful 
than  truth  as  soon  as  you  search  for  it  in  the  more 
elevated  classes. 

Another  remark  of  M.  de  Goncourt's  struck  me  very 
forcibly.  He  explains  that  a  man  of  the  people  is 
easier  to  study  and  to  paint  than  a  gentleman.  This  is 
very  true.  A  man  of  the  people  can  be  read  imme- 
diately, while  the  well-educated  gentleman  hides  his 
true  nature  under  the  thick  mask  of  education.  Then 
you  can  paint  the  man  of  the  people  in  stronger  out- 
line. This  makes  the  work  amusing ;  vigorous  silhou- 
ettes are  obtained,  violent  contrasts  in  black  and 
white.  But  I  do  not  admit  that  there  is  more  merit  in 
leaving  behind  you  a  chef-d'oeuvre  on  the  people  than 
a  chef-d'ceiivre  on  the  aristocracy.  The  work  is  not 
judged  by  its  subject,  but  by  the  talent  of  the  writer. 
As  to  knowing,  if  the  model  poses  better  or  ofTers  more 
resources,  that  is  a  secondary  question  ;  it  is  only  neces- 
sary that  the  model  should  be  reproduced  with  genius. 
M.  de  Goncourt  speaks  of  the  difficulty  that  is  experi- 
enced in  grasping  in  all  its  truth  the  distinctive  attri- 
butes of  a  Parisian  man  or  woman,  but  it  is  as  great  a 
difficulty  to  grasp  those  of  the  peasant.     I  know  some 


THE   NOVEL.  273 

very  careful  studies  on  Paris  life,  while  you  can  hardly 
find  even  a  few  true  notes  on  country  life.  Everything 
lies  in  the  manner  of  studying  ;  that  is  the  truth. 

At  last  I  am  come  to  the  principal  sentence  in  the 
preface.  M.  de  Goncourt  explains  why  he  has  written 
it,  saying  :  "  This  preface  aims  to  say  to  the  young 
writers  that  the  success  of  realism  lies  there  [in  depict- 
ing the  higher  classes]  and  only  there,  and  no  longer  in 
the  canaille  litt^raire,  as  it  is  exhausted  in  our  day,  by 
their  forerunners."  I  agree  with  him  precisely,  only 
I  ask  the  right  to  comment  upon  the  phrase  as  I 
understand  it. 

Evidently  M.  de  Goncourt  could  not  have  meant 
that  the  study  of  the  people  was  already  an  exhausted 
subject  because  he  has  written  "  Germinie  Lacerteux." 
That  would  be  conceited  and  false.  The  field  of  obser- 
vation cannot  be  exhausted  by  a  single  crop  when  it  is 
as  vast  a  field  as  that  of  the  people.  What !  we  have 
been  given  a  "  freedom  of  the  city  "  as  regards  the  people 
in  the  literary  domain,  and  back  of  us,  all  at  once,  there 
is  nothing  more  to  say  about  it.  We  may  have  made 
mistakes,  but  in  any  case  we  have  not  seen  everything. 

Besides,  M.  de  Goncourt  speaks  of  the  canaille  litte- 
raire.  I  do  not  understand  this  expression,  and  for  my 
part  I  do  not  accept  it.  '  In  my  opinion  "  Germinie 
Lacerteux  "  is  not  of  the  order  of  canaille  litt&aire ;  it 
is  a  superb  study  of  living,  throbbing  humanity.  I 
would  rather  think,  then,  that  by  this  expression  of 
canaille  litter  aire  M.  de  Goncourt  intends  to  designate 
a  certain  mode  of  expression  in  which  crude  words  are 
the  invariable  rule.  On  this  understanding  I  agree  with 
him.  I  beg  of  our  young  writers  to  break  away  from 
all  special  modes  of  expression.     The  naturalistic  for- 


274  THE    NOVEL. 

mula  is  independent  of  the  writer's  style,  as  that  is  inde- 
pendent of  any  choice  of  subject.  It  is,  as  I  have  said 
before,  but  the  scientific  method  applied  to  letters. 

I  take  up  M.  de  Goncourt's  conclusion  again,  and  I 
say  to  our  young  novelists  that  the  success  of  the  for- 
mula lies  not  in  imitating  the  process  of  their  literary 
forerunners,  but  in  the  application  of  the  scientific 
method  to  all  subjects.  I  must  add  that  there  are  no 
exhausted  subjects  ;  that  the  literary  methods  alone  are 
exhausted.  M.  de  Goncourt  rightly  desires  no  pupils. 
But  let  him  be  reassured  :  he  will  have  none  ;  I  mean  by 
this  that  simple  imitators  die  quickly,  while  the  new- 
comers who  bring  a  temperament  of  their  own  with 
them  will  soon  break  away  from  any  fatal  traditions. 
We  must  not  definitely  settle  writers  by  their  begin- 
nings ;  it  is  better  to  aid  them  in  asserting  their  origi- 
nality, which  the  crowd  does  not  see,  but  which  is  often 
very  real.  We  need  no  more  masters,  we  want  no  more 
schools.  What  keeps  us  together  is  a  common  method 
of  observation  and  experiment. 

I  go  even  further.  I  entreat  our  young  novelists  to 
^et  up  a  reaction  against  us.  Let  them  leave  us  to 
draggle  along  in  "  artistic  writing,"  according  to  M.  de 
Goncourt's  happy  expression,  and  endeavor  on  their 
part  to  acquire  a  more  solid,  simple,  and  human  style. 
All  our  sentimentalisms,  all  our  excessive  refinements 
of  form,  are  not  worth  one  good  word  in  its  proper 
place.  This  is  how  I  feel  and  this  is  what  I  desire,  if 
I  could  have  it.  But  I  am  afraid  I  have  mingled  too 
much  in  the  romantic  mixture ;  I  was  born  too  soon. 
If  I  sometimes  am  angry  with  romanticism  it  is  because 
I  hate  it  for  the  false  literary  education  which  it  has 
given  me.     I  am  tainted  with  it,  and  it  enrages  me. 


THE    NOVEL.  275 

I  come  back  to  M.  de  Goncourt,  and  I  find  in  "  Les 
Fr^res  Zemganno  "  a  last  proof  of  the  necessity  of  lying 
when  you  want  to  console  yourself  and  others.  He 
says  that  his  new  novel  is  an  attempt  "  at  a  poetic 
reality  "  ;  and  he  adds  :  "  This  year  I  found  myself  in 
one  of  those  hours  of  life  when  one  feels  his  increasing 
years ;  I  felt  ill  and  cowardly  in  the  face  of  the  sharp 
and  agonizing  labor  of  my  other  books,  in  a  condition 
of  soul  when  the  truth,  too  true,  was  distasteful  to  me 
— and  I  have  used  this  time  some  imagination,  and 
have  written  a  dream  intermingled  with  a  remem- 
brance." This  is  just  what  I  could  have  written  of 
myself  in  regard  to  "  La  Faute  de  I'Abbe  Mouret." 
Everyone  has  these  cowardly  hours  in  his  life  as  a 
writer.  I  hope  that  M.  de  Goucourt  will  write  the 
fashionable  novel  which  he  has  announced.  He  will 
not  decide  the  victory  of  naturalism  by  it,  however,  for 
this  victory  he  has  already  won,  and  he  was  one  of 
the  first  in  any  estimate.  But  he  is  mistaken  if  he 
thinks  he  will  gain  any  sympathizers  while  carrying 
his  knife  into  the  more  complicated  organisms  and  into 
a  more  knowing  corruption.  They  will  only  accuse 
him  of  insulting  the  aristocracy,  as  they  have  already 
accused  us  of  insulting  the  people,  even  though  he 
merely  employ  imagination  in  constructing  a  dream. 

As  for  me,  I  only  wish  for  one  more  triumph  for 
naturalism,  the  reaction  against  our  literary  methods. 
When  we  have  put  our  phrases,  which  compromise  the 
scientific  formula,  to  one  side,  when  we  shall  have 
applied  that  formula  to  the  study  of  all  conditions  and 
all  characters,  without  the  tra-la-la  'of  our  romantic 
frills,  we  shall  write  true,  solid,  and  durable  works. 


276  THE  NOVEL. 


THE   BOOK. 


In  the  first  place,  this  is  the  plot : 

Two  brothers,  Gianni  and  Nello,  grew  up  among 
a  troupe  of  circus  people,  of  which  their  father,  an 
Italian  named  Bescapd,  was  the  director,  and  which 
scoured  the  villages  and  smaller  cities  of  France.  Their 
mother,  a  Bohemian,  died  first,  to  the  great  sorrow  of 
her  place  and  people.  The  father  died  not  long  after- 
ward. Then  the  two  brothers,  fired  with  ambition, 
sold  their  rolling  stock  and  went  to  England,  where 
they  passed  several  years,  and  where  they  found 
employment  as  gymnasts  in  several  circuses.  They 
finally  returned  to  make  their  debut  at  a  circus  in 
Paris,  which  had  been  their  secret  desire  for  some  time. 
Gianni  had  for  a  long  time  been  trying  to  invent  some 
trick  which  would  make  them  famous.  He  finds  it  at 
last,  and  they  are  starting  to  perform  it  in  public  for 
the  first  time,  when  an  equestrienne,  who  had  been 
repulsed  by  Nello^  wreaked  her  vengeance  on  him  by 
causing  him  to  have  a  frightful  fall,  in  which  both  his 
legs  were  broken  in  such  a  manner  as  to  incapacitate 
him  from  ever  performing  again.  Gianni,  seeing  Nello 
suffer  intensely  from  a  strange  jealousy  every  time  he 
touched  a  trapeze,  finally  renounces  his  art  of  his  own 
free  will.     This  is  the  denouement. 

Latterly,  when  I  have  stated  that  the  novel  of  the 
present  day  tended  to  simplify  the  action  more  and 
more,  and  to  confine  itself  to  one  fact,  instead  of  the 
complicated  inventions  of  our  story-tellers,  I  was 
mocked  at,  and  they  even  reviled  me,  as  happened 
when  they  threw  reflections  on  my  character  by  saying 


THE    NOVEL.  277 

of  me  that  if  I  wished  to  suppress  invention  in  the 
novel  it  was  because  I  showed  a  lack  of  invention  in  my 
own  works.  In  the  first  place,  I  am  not  foolish  enough 
to  wish  to  suppress  anything  ;  I  am  but  a  critic,  whose 
only  work  is  to  arrange  the  actual  statement.  Then, 
I  only  speak  with  proofs.  For  example,  here  is  "  Les 
Freres  Zemganno,"  which  affords  me  a  very  character- 
istic proof. 

You  can  see  M.  de  Goncourt  this  time  has  not  con- 
fined himself  to  a  strictly  exact  analysis.  As  he  says 
himself,  he  has  used  imagination  in  constructing  a  story 
out  of  a  dream,  mingled  with  a  remembrance.  Since 
the  public  demand  imagination,  here  it  is.  Only  just 
see  what  imagination  can  become  in  the  hands  of  a 
naturalistic  novelist  when  he  takes  the  notion  not  to 
press  too  near  the  reality. 

Evidently  M.  de  Goncourt  did  not  exercise  this  imag- 
ination as  regards  the  facts.  It  is  impossible  to  build 
up  a  more  simple  drama.  There  is  but  one  unexpected 
change,  the  equestrienne's  vengeance,  in  substituting  a 
cask  of  wood  for  the  cask  of  cloth,  which  Nello  was  to 
carry,  thus  bringing  about  his  fall.  And  again,  this 
incident  holds  but  a  very  small  place  in  the  story.  You 
feel  that  the  author  had  need  of  it,  but  that  he  dis- 
dained it.  He  passes  ovef  it  quickly,  and  he  prolongs 
the  climax;  he  stops  at  the  situation  he  has  obtained 
as  soon  as  Nello  is  wounded.  Thus  when  M.  de  Gon- 
court speaks  of  imagination^  he  does  not  mean  by 
it  what  the  critic  does,  the  imagination  of  Alexander 
Dumas  and  Eugene  Sue  ;  he  means  a  particular  poet- 
ical arrangement,  an  individual  fancy,  made  in  the 
face  of  the  truth,  but  based  all  the  same  on  the 
truth, 


278  THE    NOVEL. 

Nothing  could  be  more  typical,  I  repeat,  than  "  Les 
Fr^res  Zemganno  "  from  this  point  of  view.  All  the 
facts  which  are  presented  to  us  are  facts  strictly  taken 
from  reality.  The  author  does  not  invent  a  plot ;  the 
most  everyday  history  is  sufficient  to  put  his  heroes 
forward  ;  the  secondary  characters  hardly  mingle  in  the 
action  at  all ;  it  is  a  matter  of  analysis  that  he  desires, 
and  not  the  symmetrical  and  opposed  elements  of  a 
drama.  Only  when  he  has  this  matter  for  analysis 
before  him,  when  he  possesses  the  needed  amount  of 
human  data,  he  gives  the  rein  to  his  imagination,  he 
builds  upon  these  data  the  poem  which  pleases  him.  In 
a  word,  the  work  of  the  imagination  is,  in  this  case,  not 
in  the  events  nor  in  the  characters,  but  in  the  way 
the  analysis  is  turned  into  another  path  and  the 
incidents  and  characters  are  made  to  symbolize  a 
certain  truth. 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  Gianni  and  Nello  do  nothing 
that  circus  athletes  could  not  do.  They  are  constructed 
according  to  exact  data.  But  they  are  idealized  ;  they 
represent  a  symbol.  In  their  ordinary  condition  things 
would  not  happen  with  such  refined  sensations.  We 
have  here  very  delicate  minds  in  very  coarse  bodies. 
M.  de  Goncourt  has  lifted  these  clowns  out  of  the 
material  atmosphere  of  violent  exercises,  to  place  them 
in  one  of  exquisite  nervous  sensibility.  Notice  that  I 
do  not  deny  the  reality  of  this  story ;  roughs  might 
have  these  adventures  and  feel  these  sensations,  only 
roughs  would  feel  them  in  a  different  way — more  con- 
fusedly. In  a  word,  in  reading  "  Les  Freres  Zemganno  " 
you  immediately  understand  that  the  work  does  not 
ring  with  the  exact  truth  ;  it  rings  with  truth  trans- 
formed by  the  imagination  of  the  author. 


THE    NOVEL.  279 

What  I  have  said  of  the  two  principal  characters  I 
could  say  of  the  less  important  ones.  I  could  also  say 
it  of  the  surroundings.  These  people  and  these  things 
have  reality  as  their  basis,  but  they  are  a  little  touched 
up  later  o;i:  they  enter  into  what  M.  de  Goncourt  has 
so  happily  called  "  a  poetic  reality."  You  must  then,  I 
repeat  once  more,  make  a  great  difference  between  the 
imagination  of  the  story-tellers,  who  turned  the  facts 
topsy-turvy,  and  the  imagination  of  the  natur9,listic 
novelists,  who  set  out  from  facts.  This  is  poetic  reality, 
that  is  to  say,  reality  taken  and  poetically  treated  sub- 
sequently. 

Certainly  we  do  not  condemn  such  imagination  as 
this.  It  is  an  inevitable  escape,  a  flight  from  the  bit- 
terness of  truth,  a  caprice  of  the  writer,  whom  the 
truths  torment  which  have  fallen  from  him.  Naturalism 
does  not  restrict  the  horizon,  as  they  so  falsely  say.  It 
is  nature  and  man  in  their  universality,  with  their 
known  and  their  unknown.  The  day  they  escape  from 
the  scientific  formula  they  but  play  truant  among  the 
truths  as  yet  undemonstrated. 

Besides,  the  question  of  method  dominates  every- 
thing. When  M.  de  Goncourt,  when  the  other  natural- 
istic writers  add  their  fantasy  to  the  truth,  they  still 
keep  the  analytical  method,  they  prolong  their  observa- 
tion beyond  what  is.  It  becomes  a  poem,  but  it  still 
remains  a  logical  work.  They  admit,  besides,  that, 
their  feet  no  longer  rest  on  the  earth  ;  they  do  not  pre- 
tend to  give  out  their  work  as  a  truth.  On  the  contrary, 
they  warn  the  public  of  the  exact  moment  when  they 
enter  upon  the  dream,  which  is,  to  say  the  least,  an  act 
of  good  faith. 

Now,  to  come  back  to  "  Les  Fr^res  Zemganno,"  it 


28o  THE    NOVEL. 

would  be  very  easy  to  tell  how  this  book  was  conceived 
by  M.  de  Goncourt.  He  felt  the  need,  at  one  moment 
of  his  life,  of  symbolizing  the  powerful  tie  which  united 
his  brother  and  himself  at  every  hour  of  the  day  in  an 
intimacy  and  joint  work.  Recoiling  from  an  autobiog- 
raphy, looking  simply  for  a  frame  for  his  memories,  he 
said  to  himself  that  two  gymnasts,  two  brothers,  who 
risked  their  lives  together,  who  had  become  united 
together  as  much  through  the  body  as  through  the 
mind,  would  actualize  in  a  powerful  and  original  manner 
the  two  beings,  blended  into  a  single  whole,  whose  sen- 
timents he  wished  to  analyze.  But,  on  the  other  side, 
from  an  easily  explained  feeling  of  delicacy,  he  recoiled 
before  the  brutal  surroundings  of  a  circus,  before  cer- 
tain uglinesses  and  certain  monstrosities  belonging  to 
the  characters  whom  he  had  chosen.  "  Les  Freres 
Zemganno  "  is,  therefore,  the  result  of  a  conception 
materialized  and  then  idealized. 

The  result  is  a  very  touching  book,  startling  in  its 
strangeness.  As  I  have  said,  you  soon  feel  that  you 
are  not  in  a  real  world ;  but,  under  the  caprice  of  a* 
symbol,  there  is  in  it  a  throbbing  humanity.  I  will 
point  out  the  bits  of  analysis  which  struck  me  most. 
The  childhood  of  the  two  brothers,  their  tenderness 
growing  with  their  years,  their  mutual  absorption  ;  then, 
later,  their  two  bodies,  which  became  but  one  body  in 
the  dangers  which  they  faced,  this  perfect  union  of  the 
two  gymnasts  entering  more  and  more  the  one  into  the 
other,  hving  their  life  in  common  ;  and  then,  when  Nello 
can  no  longer  perform,  his  anger  at  the  thought  that  his 
brother  would  perform  without  him  ;  his  jealousy,  like 
a  woman's,  happy  in  knowing  the  beloved  being  would 
never  love  elsewhere,  and  demanding  in  his  unreason- 


THE    NOVEL.  281 

ableness  that  the  Zemganno  Brothers  should  both  die 
from  the  moment  that  one  was  dead  to  the  circus. 
These  are  the  pages  which  give  to  the  work  an  intense 
life,  a  life  lived,  outside  of  the  reality  of  characters  and 
,  surroundings.  Human  data  are  so  touching  here  that 
they  are  felt  even  under  the  poetic  veil  which  is  thrown 
over  them. 

In  his  pure  descriptions  M.  de  Goncourt  has  retained 
his  exact  and  fine  touch.  There  is,  in  this  connection, 
at  the  commencement  of  the  book,  a  marvelous  descrip- 
tion :  a  landscape  at  the  hour  of  twilight,  with  a  little 
city  in  the  distance  whose  lights  twinkle  on  the  horizon. 
I  will  also  cite  the  description  of  the  circus  the  night 
Nello  broke  his  legs ;  the  silence  of  the  audience  after 
the  fall  has  a  superb  effect.  And  what  beautiful  epi- 
sodes— that  of  the  death  of  the  gypsy  mother  in  the 
traveling  wagon  which  served  them  for  a  home ;  the 
different  exhibitions  on  the  road  ;  the  evening  that 
Nello,  convalescent,  wished  to  see  the  circus  again,  and 
is  seated  in  the  Champs-Elys^es  on  a  rainy  night, 
before  him  the  brightly  illuminated  windows ;  then  he 
goes  away  silently  without  wanting  to  enter. 

Such  is  the  book.  It  brings  a  new  note  into  M.  de 
Goncourt's  work,  and  it  will  remain  by  its  originality 
and  its  emotion.  The  author  has  written  simpler  and 
completer  books,  but  he  has  put  into  this  one  all  his 
tears,  all  his  tenderness,  and  that  often  is  sufficient  to 
render  a  work  immortal. 


MORALITY. 

ONE  of  my  good  friends  had  a  novel  in  course  of 
publication  in  a  newspaper.  The  editor  in  chief 
had  him  summoned  one  evening  and  spoke  to  him 
with  great  indignation  of  a  paragraph  which  was  to 
appear  in  the  paper  the  next  day;  I  do  not  know 
exactly  what  it  was  the  editor  found  fault  with — the 
lovers  were  not  behaving  well,  there  was  a  kiss  which 
was  thought  to  be  too  tender.  My  friend,  blushing  at 
the  idea  of  having  shocked  the  sensibilities  of  the  whole 
editorial  staff,  consented  to  suppress  the  paragraph. 
The  next  day  what  was  the  astonishment  of  this  young 
man  to  read  on  the  third  page  of  this  same  newspaper, 
in  the  same  edition  from  which  they  had  made  him 
expurge  his  paragraph,  the  story  given  at  length  and 
in  all  its  details  of  a  most  atrocious  criminal  affair,  such 
as  the  most  romantic  imagination  alone  could  have 
been  capable  of  conceiving.  No  horror  was  spared, 
neither  the  details  of  the  horrible  crime  nor  the  abom- 
inable circumstances  accompanying  it. 

Well,  I  must  say  I  cannot  understand  it.  The  ques- 
tion stands  thus :  How  is  it  that  the  newspapers  are  so 
bashful  on  their  ground  floor,  and  so  improper  on  their 
third  page  ?  I  do  not  enter  upon  the  literary  discussion 
concerning  imagination  and  reality ;  I  merely  examine 
one  fact ;  I  say  that  there  is  an  absolute  lack  of  logic  in 
speaking  of  the  dignity  of  a  newspaper  and  the  respect 


THE    NOVEL.  ,  283 

due  to  families.  If  after  exercising  police  supervision 
with  the  novel  they  publish  without  hesitation  all  the 
infamies  of  the  courts,  why  exact  in  one  place  a  couleur 
de  rose  lie  and  then  accept  all  the  ferocities  of  existence 
in  another? 

For  a  long  time  I  have  wanted  to  make  a  certain  study 
and  I  have  begun  keeping  a  scrapbook  toward  this 
end.  My  idea  is  very  simple :  I  cut  out  of  the  news- 
papers with  the  largest  circulation,  those  which  pride 
themselves  on  being  read  by  mothers  and  young  girls, 
the  most  frightful  episodes,  the  details  of  crimes  and 
lawsuits  which  put  most  cynically  in  all  its  nakedness 
the  filth  of  man ;  then  I  propose  some  day,  when  I  have 
a  pretty  little  pile  of  these  experiences,  to  publish  the 
collection,  contenting  myself  with  printing  after  each 
extract  the  name  and  the  date  of  the  newspaper.  When 
this  work  shall  be  completed  we  shall  see  with  what  a 
dignified  air  the  editors  will  speak  to  their  subscribers 
at  the  least  trace  of  boldness  in  analysis  shown  by  the 
naturalistic  novelist. 

And  you  may  believe  that  my  collection  will  be  a  rich 
one.  I  already  have  the  story  of  an  old  woman  who  was 
thrown  into  the  water  and  taken  out  three  times  by 
her  murderer  for  his  pleasure  ;  I  have  that  of  the  other 
old  woman  killed  by  two  young  men  after  a  frightful 
orgie ;  I  have  that  of  Menesclou  with  her  chemise 
spotted  with  blood ;  without  taking  into  consideration 
all  kinds  of  occurrences  :  the  minute  details  of  the  cutting 
up  of  murdered  bodies,  young  girls  kidnapped,  adul- 
teries. Without  doubt  the  newspapers  neither  make 
vices  nor  crimes  ;  they  content  themselves  with  relating 
them,  but  in  such  clear  terms,  or  with  paraphrases  which 
but  aggravate  the  obscenity  to  such  a  point,  that  they 


284  .  THE    NOVEL. 

do  well  truly  to  dispute  with  us  the  liberty  of  saying 
everything. 

1  know  very  well  what  the  editors  will  reply.  They 
are  for  the  most  part  splendid  fellows,  loving  a  broad 
joke,  and  cutting  capers  like  other  simple  mortals. 
Only  they  do  not  jest  with  their  subscribers.  In  their 
heart  of  hearts  they  do  not  care  a  fig  for  the  dignity  of 
their  journals;  what  they  desire  is  that  the  subscriber 
should  be  satisfied  ;  and  they  would  give  him  arsenic  if 
only  he  asked  for  it.  Admit  if  you  wish  that  the 
inconsistency  comes  from  the  public ;  the  public  which 
tolerates  the  bloody  sewer  of  the  courts,  asks  in  novels 
for  little  birds  and  daisies  to  console  itself  with.  It  is 
a  convention ;  that  which  is  scandalous  in  one  place 
becomes  inoffensive  in  another.  And  if  you  have  the 
misfortune  to  lack  the  proper  credentials  you  are  a 
scamp,  the  whole  press  drags  you  in  the  gutter. 
Liberal  public  ! 

At  this  moment  a  divorce  suit  is  stirring  up  Paris. 
I  do  not  intend  to  judge  the  people  concerned  therein, 
and  I  do  not  even  care  what  the  courts'  decision  may 
be.  What  interests  me  is  simply  these  stories  told  by 
the  newspapers,  those  which  they  print,  the  soiled  linen 
which  is  shaken  out  with  so  much  ease  and  com- 
placency. 

Apropos  of  this  let  me  hazard  an  observation :  you 
know  very  well  that  the  j  udges  dare  go  much  further  than 
we  can,  the  novelists.  They  enter  into  truly  scandalous 
details;  the  liberty  of  their  questions  is  such  sometimes, 
and  they  go  so  deep  into  the  obscene,  that  they  are 
obliged  to  order  the  doors  closed.  I  know  well  that  their 
mission  is  to  know  all,  in  order  to  judge.  Well,  our 
mission  is  also  to  know  all,  in  order  to  judge.  Between 


THE    NOVEL.  285 

judges  and  writers  there  is  only  one  difference,  and  that 
is  that  sometimes  the  writers  leave  works  of  genius. 

Thus,  my  friends,  we  must  confess  our  impotence. 
We  shall  never  put  forth  truth  with  this  degree  of 
cruelty.  The  newspapers,  which  become  indignant  at 
our  works,  and  which  publish  in  all  their  details  these 
obscene  pictures,  no  doubt  think  that  we  are  turn- 
ing into  berquinades.  Consider  the  nature  and  the 
details  of  the  great  scandal  the  newspapers  are  reveal- 
ing so  plainly  at  this  very  moment,  and  which  is  drag- 
ging through  the  mud  the  names  of  living  people,  who 
are  known  to  all  of  us,  and  you  will  realize  how  mean, 
small,  and  youthful,  timid  and  colorless,  our  stories  are — 
bread  and  milk  for  children  in  pinafores.  I  am  ashamed 
of  this  simple  water. 

Is  it  not  my  great  friend  Edmond  de  Goncourt  who 
advises  you,  you  young  writers,  to  study  the  world  of 
fashion,  to  carry  observation  and  analysis  up  into  the 
higher  classes  in  order  to  write  good  novels,  which  will 
give  forth  a  clean,  sweet  smell  ?  The  advice  is  excellent, 
but  where  is  this  world?  It  is  unquestionably  not 
among  the  officials  and  the  millionaires  of  the  lawsuit 
now  going  on.  Is  it  a  question  of  the  fashionable  world 
with  open  doors  or  with  closed  doors  ?  If  we  are  curious, 
if  we  should  peep  through  the  chinks,  I  doubt  not  that 
we  should  see  in  these  higher  classes,  what  we  saw  with 
the  lower  people,  for  the  human  beast  is  the  same 
everywhere — it  is  only  the  clothing  that  differs.  Such 
is  the  opinion  that  I  have  expressed  at  other  times,  and 
now  the  echoes  of  the  Palais  de  Justice  furnish  me 
withreasonsforcontinuingin  this  same  way  of  thinking. 

We  others,  common  folk,  of  ordinary  appearance  and 
little  fortune,  we  only  know  of  this  high  society  by  the 


286  THE    NOVEL. 

scandalous  divorce  suits  which  burst  upon  us  every 
winter.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  salons  to  which  we  may 
go ;  you  are  exposed  to  the  eyes  of  the  public  in  these 
salons,  you  behave  there  at  least  fairly  well.  I  speak  of 
the  dining  room,  the  boudoir,  the  alcove.  From  each 
lawsuit  we  learn  some  nice  bits  of  information.  Mon- 
sieur swears  like  a  car-driver,  calls  his  daughter  an  out- 
rageous name,  and  his  lady  companion  a  worse  one ; 
madame  meets  gentlemen  in  churches ;  the  father-in- 
law  is  a  fool  and  the  mother-in-law  insupportable.  They 
slap  each  other  as  the  result  of  hard  words ;  they 
pull  each  other's  hair  before  the  domestics.  Grand 
Dieu  I  are  we  in  a  wretched  hole  of  La  Chapelle  ? 
Not  at  all ;  we  are  in  the  best  society  in  the  world, 
a  world  frequented  by  princes. 

What  do  the  public  imagine  ?  When  we  put  an  oath  in 
the  mouth  of  a  well  brought  up  man  ;  when  we  note  an 
obscene  conversation,  whispered  just  a  few  steps  away 
from  some  ladies  in  a  drawing  room ;  when  we  find  the 
lackey  and  the  prostitute  under  the  black  coat  and  the 
velvet  robe — will  they  still  tell  us  that  we  lie  ?  will  they 
shrug  their  shoulders,  affirming  that  we  do  not  know 
the  fashionable  world  ?  will  they  accuse  us  of  defaming 
it  and  soiling  it  for  our  own  pleasure  ?  The  fashionable 
world  !  Behold  it  as  it  is  when  a  great  passion  shakes 
it,  when  a  terrible  drama  throws  it  outside  of  its  polite- 
ness and  its  conventionalities. 

Obscenity  is  at  the  bottom  of  it  all.  Sometimes 
a  lawsuit  appears  and  breaks  the  surface,  like  an  abscess. 
Everybody  is  astonished.  They  seem  to  think  the 
fact  exceptional,  because  most  people  recoil  before 
a  scandal ;  but  how  many  people  have  quietly  sepa- 
rated after  scenes  of  violence,  how  many  brutalities  and 


THE    NOVEL.  287 

obscenities  are  concealed  ?  A  lawsuit  is  simply  an  ex- 
perimental novel,  which  unrolls  itself  before  the  public. 
Two  temperaments  are  brought  forward,  and  the  experi- 
ment takes  place,  under  the  influence  of  exterior  cir- 
cumstances. This  is  the  truth  ;  a  true  drama  brings 
sharply  out  into  broad  daylight  the  true  mechanism  of 
life. 


CRITICISM 


CRITICISM. 


POLEMICS. 

I. — M.  CHARLES  BIGOT. 

MY  attention  was  called  lately  to  an  essay  entitled 
'*  The  Naturalistic  Cult,"  which  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Monde s  has  asked  M.  Charles  Bigot  to  write.  I 
was  filled  with  curiosity  to  know  what  M.  Charles 
Bigot,  that  lettered  and  conscientious  critic,  could  pos- 
sibly say  on  naturalism  in  that  grave  temple.  La  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes.  I  started  to  read  it  with  all  the 
attention  I  possessed.  Here  are  the  impressions  of 
my  reading,  just  as  they  came  to  me : 

First,  he  is  guilty  of  a  deception.  The  critic  starts 
out  by  making  those  little  jests  which  have  been 
current  in  the  small  newspapers  for  the  last  three  years. 
It  is  certainly  a  good  thing  to  laugh,  but  it  is  necessary 
to  laugh  appropriately  and  on  your  own  account.  Con- 
sequently I  was  slightly  irritated  on  finding  that  the 
critic  took  up  again  those  old  accusations,  styling  me 
a  Messiah,  a  Pope,  the  head  of  a  school,  crushing  me 
because  I  have  not  brought  a  new  religion  in  my 
pocket,  crying  out  that  naturalism  is  as  old  as  the 
world,  and  subsequently  becoming  angry  with  it  while 
calling  it  an  incongruous  novelty.  I  confess  that  I  am 
a  little  weary  of  replying  to  all  this  sort  of  thing.     It 

291 


292  CRITICISM. 

was  no  use  for  me  to  say  once  more  that  I  was  simply 
a  recorder  drawing  up  the  report  of  the  course  of  the 
intellectual  current ;  no  use  to  cry  aloud  that  there  was 
no  school  and  that  I  was  not  a  leader ;  that  I  had  a 
horror  of  all  revelation  and  of  all  pontificate ;  the 
pleasantries  continue  none  the  less,  the  confusion 
remains  complete,  the  light  is  not  thrown  on  my  posi- 
tion nor  on  my  true  role.  It  seems  as  if  a  password 
were  given ;  each  one  makes  over  his  neighbor's  article 
without  trying  to  understand,  without  having  even  the 
fairness  to  quote  me  as  the  basis  of  his  reasoning.  Let 
that  pass  when  it  is  only  a  question  of  the  petty  news- 
papers. But  here  comes  La  Revue  des  Deux  Mo?ides, 
which  with  all  solemnity  opens  its  mouth  and  lets  fall 
the  same  empty  judgments,  with  utter  uselessness  and 
insignificance. 

How  can  I  make  M.  Charles  Bigot  understand  that 
he  has  written  a  dull  article,  in  which  he  says  nothing 
at  all  ?  This  is,  however,  the  strict  truth.  He  starts 
out  from  a  radically  false  standpoint,  he  gives  me  an 
attitude  which  I  have  not,  he  makes  me  say  what  I 
have  never  said,  and  does  not  tell  rightly  what  I  have 
repeated  twenty  times.  Then  how  can  one  suppose 
that  he  does  good  work  ?  He  can  only  paw  the  ground, 
raising  merely  a  lot  of  dust  I  have  called  naturalism 
the  return  to  nature,  the  scientific  movement  of  the  cen- 
tury ;  I  have  shown  the  experimental  method  brought 
to  bear  upon  and  applied  to  all  the  manifestations  of 
human  intelligence  ;  I  have  tried  to  explain  the  evident 
evolution  which  is  being  produced  in  our  literature  by 
establishing  the  proposition  that  the  former  subject  of 
study,  the  metaphysical  man,  is  being  replaced  by  the 
physiological  man,     Is  all  this  so  difficult  of  compre- 


Criticism.  igi 

hension  ?  And  why  speak  of  a  new  religion,  when  we 
have  just  broken  away  from  all  religions  ? 

My  irritation  grows  greater,  then,  at  each  page. 
Picture  yourself  talking  to  a  deaf  person,  and  that  you 
cannot  draw  from  him  one  word  which  fits  in  with  what 
you  ire  saying.  You  talk  to  him  of  the  fine  weather, 
and  he  replies  to  you  that  he  feels  very  well.  You  ask 
him  for  news,  and  he  is  disconsolate  because  the  grapes 
will  not  ripen  well  this  year.  This  is  exactly  my  situa- 
tion with  regard  to  M.  Charles  Bigot.  Not  one  of  his 
phrases  responds  to  mine.  He  has  made  a  little  natu- 
ralism for  his  own  use,  or  rather  he  bestrides  naturalism 
for  the  sake  of  a  joking  criticism,  and  once  started  he 
rides  off  alone.  Positively,  monsieur,  in  this  fashion  we 
shall  never  come  together. 

However,  pages  succeed  pages,  I  actually  feared  to 
come  to  the  end  of  the  essay  without  finding  anything. 
It  threatened  to  be  absolute  emptiness.  But  not  at  all. 
I  at  last  fell  upon  a  very  serious  passage.  M.  Charles 
Bigot,  who  has  just  devoted  ten  pages,  and  God  knows 
what  very  full  pages  they  are,  to  flitting  around  the 
question  without  entering  upon  it,  to  jesting,  to  battUng 
with  windmills,  confusing  everything  and  judging  at 
random  his  own  imaginations — M.  Charles  Bigot  all  at 
once  steps  on  the  ground  itself  of  the  discussion,  comes 
to  the  decisive  point.  And  remark  that  he  does  not  seem 
to  perceive  that  he  has  reached  it,  for  he  goes  and  slurs 
over  the  point,  he  who  is  so  lavish  in  his  favors  at  the 
beginning.  It  is  seemingly  by  chance  that  he  stops 
there  for  the  space  of  a  paragraph.  A  little  more  and 
he  would  have  passed  by  the  subject  completely,  and 
we  should  only  have  had  a  pretty  dance  about 
nothing. 


294  CRITICISM. 

I  will  quote  it,  which  is  more  than  he  has  done  for  me. 
After  granting  that  the  naturalists  have  at  least  the 
originality  ''  of  mixing  up  in  their  painting  of  monsters 
physiology  with  psychology,  or  rather  of  suppressing 
psychology  to  the  advantage  of  physiology,"  he  cries 
out :  "  This  is  not  the  moment  to  examine  into  this 
great  philosophical  question  of  mind  and  matter,  nor 
that  of  freedom  and  human  responsibility,  formidable 
problems  which  were  not  made  to  be  solved  in  a  few 
lines."  But  yes,  monsieur,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the 
moment.  I  pray  you  wait  a  moment.  I  am  perfectly 
willing  that  you  should  not  place  us  on  philosophical 
ground,  which  has  no  solidity,  but  place  us  on  scientific 
ground.  And  then,  if  you  like,  do  not  move  us,  for 
here  we  possess  certainty. 

Further  on  I  read  again :  "  .  .  .  I  shall  reply  that 
physiology  ought  to  be  left  to  physiologists ;  beware 
of  literary  physiology  as  much  as  of  amateur  music.'' 
Nothing  prevents  me  from  crying  out  in  my  turn :  "  I 
shall  reply  that  psychology  should  be  left  to  the  psy- 
chologists ;  let  us  beware  of  literary  psychology  as  much 
as  of  amateur  music."  I  will  not  recommence  here  my 
essay  "  Le  Roman  Experimental  "  ("  The  Experimental 
Novel "),  to  which  I  refer  M.  Bigot.  This  time  will  he 
understand  that  I  am  not  a  Messiah,  that  I  am  content 
to  search  for  what,  according  to  my  way  of  thinking, 
will  be  the  decisive  influence  of  scientific  methods  on 
our  literary  analysis  of  man  and  nature.  I  do  not  ask 
him  to  think  as  I  do.  I  beg  him  simply  not  to  distort 
my  thought.  Let. him  attack  it  if  he  will,  but  let  him 
understand  it  first. 

Nothing  is  so  astonishing  in  our  age  of  inquiry  as  to 
hear  a  man  of  such  intelligence  as  M.  Bigot  give  utter- 


CRITICISM.  295 

ance  to  the  following  lines  :  "  What  does  it  matter  to 
me  as  a  spectator  whether  Phedre  is  or  is  not  suffering 
from  an  hysterical  illness  ?  That  is  the  business  of  the 
doctor  who  has  her  health  under  his  care.  What 
occupies  me  is  to  know  what  is  to  be  the  effect  of  her 
furious  love,  what  ravages  this  love  will  work  in  her 
conscience,  and  if  the  innocent  Hippolyte  will  perish. 
.  .  .  The  artist  is  not  a  savant  who  seeks  out  causes, 
the  task  he  sets  himself  is  to  paint  effects,  to  have  an 
emotion  sweet  or  terrible  burst  forth  from  his  work." 
Then,  monsieur,  let  us  keep  to  the  novels  of  Ponson  du 
Terrail.  If  the  domain  of  literature  is  only  in  the 
effects,  if  you  forbid  the  search  for  causes  you  cancel 
with  one  stroke  of  the  pen  all  human  analysis :  story- 
tellers must  suffice  us. 

This  is  precisely  what  we  wish  to  do :  recommence 
our  study  of  Ph'^dre.  You  are  in  the  midst  of  our 
ambitions,  or  rather  of  our  duties.  We  find  that  since 
the  metaphysical  ground  is  yielding  place  to  the  scien- 
tific, the  theological  and  classical  literature  should  yield 
to  the  naturalistic  literature.  Notice  that  this  trans- 
formation has  taken  place  of  itself,  and  all  I  do  is  to 
state  the  fact.  This  is  not  a  personal  fantasy  of  the 
head  of  a  school,  it  is  a  fact  laid  down  by  a  critic. 
Phedre  is  ill :  well,  let  us  see  what  her  illness  is,  demon- 
strate it,  let  us  master  it,  if  it  is  possible  ;  that  is  of 
more  value  than  for  you  to  amuse  yourself  by  merely 
enjoying  the  spectacle  of  this  illness,  which  is  not  right, 
monsieur. 

I  pass  over  M.  Charles  Bigot's  patriotic  couplet 
condemning  true  pictures,  intending  us  to  understand 
that  M.  de  Bismarck  is  watching  us.  I  have  already 
said  elsewhere  that  our  defeats  were  due  to  our  disdain 


2g6  CRITICISM. 

of  scientific  principles.  Let  us  love  truth  and  we  shall 
conquer. 

In  the  same  way  I  make  no  comment  on  the  singular 
tactics  employed  by  M.  Charles  Bigot  to  annihilate 
naturalism.  He  speaks  of  "  La  Devou^e  "  by  M.  Leon 
Hennique  and  "  Les  Soeurs  Vatard  "  by  M.  Huysmans 
without  giving,  for  the  matter  of  that,  the  title  of  these 
novels,  without  mentioning  the  names  of  the  authors, 
as  if  the  majesty  of  La  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  was 
unwilling  freely  to  occupy  itself  with  two  young 
novelists  at  their  first  appearance  ;  and  he  starts  out 
from  that  place  to  accuse  the  school,  always  the  school ! 
of  not  having  yet  made  itself  master  of  the  world. 
Yes,  he  would  like  us  to  treat  the  whole  of  humanity  in 
two  volumes.  Bon  Dieu  !  what  unreasonableness !  You 
wait! 

And  now  I  come  to  this  question  :  How  is  it  possi- 
ble that  M.  Charles  Bigot,  assuredly  a  man  of  great 
merit,  could  write  for  a  review  of  such  importance  as 
La  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  an  essay  so  confused 
and  insignificant,  when  this  review  ordered  an  article 
on  naturalism  ?     This  seems  to  me  a  very  curious  case. 

M.  Bigot  is  capable  of  better  things  than  this  essay. 
He  was  a  good  scholar  at  the  Normal  School ;  he  even, 
I  think,  has  taught  at  Mines.  His  is  a  very  cultivated 
mind,  knowing  a  great  number  of  things,  writing 
remarkable  political  articles,  putting  more  than  the 
ordinary  amount  of  good  sense  and  conscience  into  his 
literary  studies.  But  as  soon  as  he  touches  upon  this 
question  of  naturalism  he  becomes  scared,  he  loses  his 
footing,  he  does  not  even  give  himself  the  trouble  to 
seriously  study  the  question  in  the  original  documents, 
so  much  is  he  under  the  current  prejudices,  so  much 


CRITICISM.  ^97 

has  he  allowed  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  the  need 
to  cleave  the  monster  in  two. 

In  the  first  place,  without  knowing  it,  M.  Bigot 
accedes  to  certain  philosophical  beliefs.  It  is  no  use 
to  affect  a  flippant  air,  he  knows  very  well  that  these 
are  conceptions  of  men  and  nature  which  are  in  ques- 
tion. I  do  not  say  that  M.  Bigot  is  a  hardened  ideaHst. 
I  shall  incline,  on  the  contrary,  to  think  of  him  as  float- 
ing in  an  eclecticism  made  up  of  odds  and  ends.  His 
ideas  smell  of  the  school — he  who  sees  schools  every- 
where. Add  the  Hterary  disposition.  Science  is  an 
enemy  to  him.  This  idea  of  a  literature  governed  by 
science  surprises  and  disconcerts  him.  It  would  mean 
to  remake  his  education  entirely  anew.  You  should 
see  his  indignation  and  astonishment  at  finding  that 
you  can  admire  the  ligament  of  a  muscle,  the  play  of 
an  organ,  the  mechanism  of  a  body. 

But  this  is  not  all.  M.  Charles  Bigot  lacks  strong 
opinions,  and  this  is  a  more  serious  thing  in  criticism 
than  you  might  suppose.  Look  at  M.  Sarcey.  Cer- 
tainly his  judgments  are  often  rough.  He  passes  more 
than  once  squarely  to  the  side  of  truth,  but  he  has  none 
the  less  acquired  an  authority,  and  that  often  legiti- 
mately, because  he  shows  his  real  feeling  entirely,  such 
as  it  is.  On  the  contrary,  M.  Charles  Bigot  wishes  to 
use  tact  in  dealing  with  all  subjects ;  he  seeks  the  per- 
fect equilibrium  between  yesterday  and  to-morrow.  I 
must  personally  thank  him  for  the  efforts  which  he  has 
made  to  drag  me  out  of  the  fray  in  his  massacre  of 
the  naturalistic  novelists.  Only,  with  this  desire  for  the 
strict  justice  of  a  school-teacher,  with  this  ambition  to 
distribute  the  prizes  to  the  most  meritorious,  he  will 
end  by  no  longer  keeping  count  of  the  great^volutions 


298  CRITICISM. 

and  by  losing  interest  in  the  general  movement  of 
minds.  I  will  venture  to  say  that  it  would  be  better 
sometimes  to  risk  an  exaggeration  and  take  a  position, 
to  carry  your  personal  action  into  the  labors  of  the  cen- 
tury and  do  the  work  of  a  man.  No  true  convictions, 
no  action ! 

This  is  no  doubt  the  reason  why  the  essay  published 
in  La  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  is  a  dilution  of  all  the 
essays  without  reflection  and  weight  which  have 
appeared  elsewhere.  I  am  waiting  for  an  adversary  who 
will  consent  to  meet  me  on  my  own  ground  and  to  fight 
me  with  my  own  weapons. 


II. 

M.   ARMAND   SILVESTRE. 

IN  the  last  Revue  Dramatique,  in  an  article  written 
by  one  of  my  colleagues,  M.  Armand  Silvestre,  a 
poet  of  great  talent,  and  who  rows  with  us  in  the  crit- 
ical galley,  I  came  upon  a  theory  on  the  unworthiness 
of  the  novel  and  the  excellence  of  poetry  which  I  wish 
to  reply  to.  This  theory  is  that  a  poem  alone  is 
immortal,  while  a  novel  can  look,  at  the  very  most,  for 
only  fifty  years  of  success.  And  M.  Silvestre  adds : 
"  I  cite  here  a  purely  experimental  fact,  and  one  for 
which  M.  Emile  Zola  could  surely  not  reproach  me." 

Certainly,  yes  :  I  base  all  science  on  facts.  Only  the 
facts  must  be  clearly  established  and  clearly  explained. 
Let  us  see  the  facts. 

In  the  first  place,  I  shall  reproach  M.  Armand  Sil- 
vestre for  a  phrase  which  has  no  doubt  fallen  from  him 
unwittingly.  He  says,  in  comparing  Balzac  and  Flau- 
bert to  Victor  Hugo  and  Theophile  Gautier  :  "There 
will  always  be  an  abyss  between  the  artists  who  work 
for  their  epoch  and  those  who  attempt  immortality." 
The  idea  of  Balzac  and  Flaubert  being  accused  of  not 
caring  a  fig  for  immortality,  of  working  for  only  their 
own  generation  !  I  do  not  advise  M.  Silvestre  to  main- 
tain that  opinion  about  Flaubert,  who  spent  ten  years 
in  writing  one  novel,  and  who  had  the  high  and  great 
ambition  of  engraving  each  word  as  though  on  marble. 

299 


300  CRITICISM. 

I  also  think  his  affirmation  as  to  the  approaching,  and 
complete  disappearance  of  Balzac's  work  a  little  risky. 

Truly  the  poets  are  wrong  when  they  deny  us  the 
desire  for  immortality.  That  is  a  noble  fever  which 
consumes  all  writers  of  talent,  whether  they  write  in 
prose  or  in  poetry.  It  is  an  outrage  to  say  to  us:  "You 
do  not  write  in  rhyme,  therefore  you  are  but  reporters." 
Ah,  bon  Dieu  /  what  courage  should  we  have  for  our 
work  if  the  most  humble  among  us  did  not  soothe  our- 
selves with  the  pleasant  dream  of  living  through  the 
ages  ?  Our  whole  strength  lies  in  that.  Perhaps  we 
mislead  ourselves,  but  it  is  glorious  to  be  mistaken  in 
this  way,  and  the  worst  unhappiness  which  can  overtake 
us  is  the  thought  after  writing  a  page  :  "  Here  is  a  page 
which  will  die  before  I  do." 

Thus  we  all  work  for  immortality.  The  impulse  is 
universal  and  superb,  and  it  is  this  impulse  which  makes 
the  grandeur  of  letters.  It  remains  to  be  seen  if  inevi- 
tably, by  a  law  of  nature,  the  novel  is  condemned  to 
disappear  at  the  end  of  half  a  century,  while  the  poem 
by  a  special  grace  will  be  from  its  essence  immortal. 

M.  Armand  Silvestre  pretends  to  base  his  opinion 
on  facts.  Evidently  he  is  thinking  of  antiquity,  of 
Homer  for  the  Greeks  and  of  Virgil  for  the  Latins, 
without  mentioning  authors  of  tragedy.  The  names  of 
great  prose  writers  could  be  mentioned,  especially  in 
Rome.  But  if  we  do  admit  that  epic  poetry  is  the 
highest  form  of  expression  with  the  two  ancient  lan- 
guages which  are  taught  to  us  in  our  colleges,  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  there  are  for  this,  historical  condi- 
tions to  be  taken  into  account.  A  literature  is  but  one 
form  of  logic. 

All  pagan  philosophy  tended  to  poetry,  to  the  culti- 


CRITICISM.  301 

vation  of  one  form  of  expression,  to  accept  as  absolute 
one  definite  kind  of  beauty.  For  my  part,  I  deny  that 
there  is  one  absolute  form  in  the  matter  of  beauty ;  this 
is  so  true,  and  the  rules  of  each  nation  and  each  age 
differ  so  much,  that  the  numerous  attempts  which  we 
have  made  toward  epic  poems  ended  in  monstrosities. 
We  were  obliged  to  fall  back  upon  dramatic  and  lyric 
poetry,  which,  in  the  ancient  rhetorics  occupied  a  sec- 
ondary place. 

Moreover,  our  pride  as  writers  must  admit  one  thing, 
and  that  is  that  our  immortality  often  comes  to  us 
from  secondary  causes.  Thus  classical  education  for 
the  last  three  centuries  has  done  more  for  the  glory  of 
Homer  and  Virgil  than  has  even  their  genius.  How  is 
it  possible  for  us  to  escape  feeling  admiration  for  these 
poets,  when  they  have  been  dinned  into  us  from  our 
very  childhood  ?  You  might  well  say  that  there  are 
truly  no  immortal  books  but  those  which  have  become 
classical.  I  should  like  to  know  where  Boileau  would 
stand  to-day,  for  example,  if  our  professors  did  not 
hammer  his  writings  into  our  brains.  And  by  the  side 
of  Boileau  how  many  forgotten  poets  there  are,  known 
only  to  literary  men,  and  who  are  superior  to  him. 
They  are  not  between  the  hands  of  schoolboys,  and 
that  condemns  them.  There  is  a  species  of  ready-made 
admiration,  which  one  generation  transmits  to  the  fol- 
lowing generation  like  articles  of  faith.  This  is,  per- 
haps, the  only  practical  immortality,  while  waiting  for 
a  new  deluge  to  carry  our  works  on  its  waves  like 
straws — our  poor  human  works,  of  which  we  are  so 
proud,  and  which  do  not  count  in  the  great  evolution 
of  worlds. 

Evidently  verses  have  a  better  chance  of  living  a 


3°  2  CRITICISM, 

long  time,  if  you  look  upon  immortality  as  a  simple 
result  of  the  memory  exercises  in  our  schools.  Verses 
are  learned  with  more  facility ;  there  is  a  music  to  them 
which  fixes  the  words  in  our  memories.  Then  poems 
are  generally  short,  and  it  must  be  remarked  that  the 
generations  prefer  short  works,  which  they  read  and 
retain  without  effort.  Homer  has  but  two  works — the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey ;  and  the  Odyssey  is,  in  a  certain 
measure,  discarded,  because  it  does  not  enter  directly 
into  classical  education.  All  Virgil's  works  are  con- 
tained in  a  thin  volume.  These  are  things  which  ought 
to  make  us  modern  writers  tremble  when  we  think  of 
our  incredible  fecundity.  Look  at  Voltaire ;  already 
two  or  three  masterpieces  alone  survive.  And  Victor 
Hugo.  M.  Armand  Silvestre,  who  places  him  on  the 
pinnacle,  does  he  think  that  he  will  live,  with  his  thou- 
sands of  verses  ?  For  my  part,  I  am  certain  that  pos- 
terity will  glean  out  from  this  pile  of  rhymes  fifty  pieces 
at  most,  a  volume  which  will  remain  the  chef-d  'oeuvre 
of  French  lyrical  poetry. 

This  is  the  only  superiority,  then,  which  I  am  willing 
to  admit  that  the  poem  holds  over  the  novel :  it  is 
shorter,  and  it  is  retained  with  greater  ease ;  this  is 
what  gives  it  preference  in  our  schools  as  an  exercise 
for  the  pupil's  memory.  Every  other  idea,  above  all, 
the  idea  of  any  absolute  form,  is  an  aesthetic  jest. 
Written  works  are  the  expressions  of  a  certain  society 
— nothing  more.  Greece  in  the  heroic  age  wrote  epic 
poems,  France  of  the  nineteenth  century  writes  nov- 
els. These  are  natural  incidents  of  production  which 
are  one  as  good  as  the  other.  There  is  not  one  par- 
ticular beauty,  and  this  beauty  does  not  consist  in  the 
arrangement  of  words    in  a  certain    order;    there  are 


CRITICISM,  303 

but  human  phenomena  coming  in  their  time  and  pos- 
sessing the  beauty  of  their  time.  In  a  word,  Hfe  alone 
is  beautiful. 

But,  putting  the  dead  languages  to  one  side,  in  our 
own  French  literature  let  us  see  the  facts  to  which 
M.  Armand  Silvestre  refers.  Who  are  our  poets? 
Ronsard,  Malherbe,  Corneille,  Racine,  Moliere,  Lafon- 
taine,  and  then  the  lyrical  group  of  our  own  century, 
Musset,  Hugo,  Lamartine,  Gautier,  and  still  others. 
Who  are  our  prose  writers?  Rabelais,  Montaigne, 
Montesquieu,  Pascal,  Bossuet,  Saint-Simon,  Voltaire, 
Rousseau,  Diderot,  Balzac,  Flaubert,  Edmond  and  Jules 
de  Goncourt,  and  still  others.  Well,  I  think  this  is 
pretty  evenly  balanced ;  and  I  myself  consider  that 
the  prose  platform  is  the  stronger.  M.  Armand  Sil- 
vestre may  say  to  me,  perhaps,  that  these  men  named 
by  me  have  not  written  novels.  If  he  makes  this 
objection,  it  will  only  be  because  we  do  not  understand 
this  word  "  novel  "  in  the  same  sense ;  as,  indeed,  I 
suspect  is  the  case.  As  for  me,  I  look  upon  "■  Panta- 
gruel,"  "  Les  Essais,"  "  Les  Lettres  Persanes,"  ''  Les 
Provincials "  as  novels,  or,  I  should  rather  say,  as 
human  studies. 

Has  not ''  Pantagruel  "  lived  for  more  than  fifty  years  ? 
Can  M.  Armand  Silvestre  quote  me  a  poet  of  that  epoch 
who  to-day,  after  more  than  three  centuries,  eclipses 
the  glory  of  Rabelais?  There  is  Ronsard,  but  can 
Ronsard,  notwithstanding  the  exhumation  which  the 
romanticists  in  1830  attempted  with  his  works,  do  more 
than  tread  on  the  heels  of  Rabelais?  "Pantagruel," 
after  having  been  the  Bible  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
has  remained  an  indestructible  monument  in  our  litera- 
ture.     The  language  has  become  antiquated,  but   it 


304  CRITICISM. 

keeps  its  place  nevertheless.  Thus  poetry-verse  is  not 
indispensable  to  immortality. 

I  could  still  continue  these  comparisons.  The  reader 
will  easily  make  them  for  himself.  I  think  that  M. 
Armand  Silvestre's  mistake  lies  entirely  in  the  restricted 
meaning  which  he  has  given  to  the  word  novel.  He, 
no  doubt,  sees  in  the  novel  what  Mile.  Scudery  and 
Le  Sage  saw,  a  simple  amusement  for  the  mind; 
and  yet  "  Gil  Bias"  holds  its  .own  pretty  well  after 
150  years.  Since  the  eighteenth  century  the  novel 
with  us  has  broken  loose  from  the  narrow  frame 
which  inclosed  it;  it  has  become  historical  and  critical; 
I  could  easily  prove  that  it  has  become  poetical.  With 
Balzac  it  has  absorbed  all  forms  of  expression ;  I  have 
said  this  before,  and  I  repeat  it  here.  Whoever  does 
not  see  and  comprehend  this  great  literary  evolution, 
that  a  social  evolution  has  caused,  is,  in  one  second, 
thrown  outside  of  his  epoch. 

M.  Armand  Silvestre  quotes  Charles  de  Bernard,  and 
states  that  he  is  no  longer  read.  I  can  easily  under- 
stand that ;  Charles  de  Bernard  was  only  a  poor  copy 
of  Balzac,  and  possessed  not  one  original  quality.  But 
does  he  not  go  a  little  too  far  when  he  writes,  after 
having  named  Balzac  and  Flaubert,  "  I  should  consider 
it  altogether  an  impertinence  to  place  their  glory  any- 
where near  that  of  Victor  Hugo  and  Lamartine,  Alfred 
de  Musset  and  Theophile  Gautier."  This  impertinence 
I  permit  myself  the  pleasure  of  committing.  Balzac 
has  been  dead  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
and  his  glory  does  but  grow ;  to-day  he  is  a  colossus — 
he  is  at  the  summit.  We  shall  see  what  will  be  thought 
of  Victor  Hugo  twenty-five  years  after  his  death. 

Please  to  notice  I  have  the  same  contempt  for  sue- 


CRITICISM.  305 

cess  that  M.  Armand  Silvestre  expresses.  He  says 
rightly  that  the  infatuation  of  a  generation  proves 
nothing.  This  has  been  shown  in  the  case  of  Chateau- 
briand and  Lamartine  ;  it  will  yet  be  seen  in  the  case 
of  Victor  Hugo.  A  book  attains  to  its  fiftieth  edition  ; 
this  only  means  that  it  is  in  the  fashion.  But  why  does 
M.  Armand  Silvestre  say  that  novels  alone  have  "  the 
exclusive  privilege  of  repeated  editions  and  a  brilliant 
success  "  ?  And  what  of  Beranger,  one  of  his  colleagues 
in  poetry?  and  Delille,  and  Lebrun,  and  Casimir 
Delavigne?  I  think,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  bad 
poets  are  specially  lucky  in  stealing  undeserved  suc- 
cesses; they  are  decorated,  they  are  elected  to  the 
Academy,  and  they  are  embalmed  even  while  alive.  It 
only  needs  a  sonnet  to  infatuate  a  public.  The  least 
bit  of  verse  assures  a  name  for  its  author,  while  it  is 
sometimes  necessary  to  write  ten  volumes  of  prose 
before  you  succeed  in  making  people  take  you  seri- 
ously. 

Now,  to  conclude,  I  will  say  this  :  that  immortality 
comes  to  genius.  It  matters  little  what  form  is 
adopted.  The  form  is  secondary  ;  it  is  that  which  is 
fabricated,  and  ranks  second  to  the  fabricator.  M. 
Armand  Silvestre  chases  us  out  of  posterity,  we  novel- 
ists, who  believe  in  life  and  deny  the  absolute.  I  will 
be  broader  minded  than  he  is,  I  will  open  the  centuries 
to  the  poets.  Let  us  go  up  together;  that  will  be  more 
brotherly,  for  our  efforts  are  the  same.  I  do  not  admit 
that  he  accuses  me  of  knowingly  writing  on  sand 
when  I  am  very  willing  to  believe  that  he  rhymes  on 
bronze. 


"LE  REALISME." 

(HAVE  had  the  good  fortune  to  come  across  the  file 
of  a  journal  called  Le  Realisme^  which  Edmond 
Duranty  published  in  collaboration  with  a  few  friends 
during  the  first  years  of  the  Empire.  I  have  looked 
over  this  file,  and  in  it  I  found  such  curious  notes 
that  I  could  not  resist  the  desire  which  came  over  me 
to  devote  a  few  pages  to  this  subject.  In  my  opinion 
Le  Realisme  is  a  date,  a  very  important  and  significant 
document  in  our  literary  history. 

Observe  that  the  newspaper  had  only  six  numbers. 
It  appeared  on  the  15th  of  each  month,  in  the  form 
of  a  quarto,  of  sixteen  pages  of  two  columns  each. 
The  first  number  bears  the  date  of  November  15,  1856, 
and  the  last  that  of  April-May,  1857.  Evidently  the 
funds  were  exhausted,  there  was  the  delay  of  a  month, 
and  that  was  its  deathblow.  The  journal  boasted  of 
only  three  regular  editors:  M.  Edmond  Duranty,  pro- 
prietor and  editor-in-chief ;  M.  Jules  Assezat,  later 
editor  of  Les  D^bats^  and  to  whom  we  owe  the  publica- 
tion of  a  fine  edition  of  Diderot,  but  who  has  been 
dead  now  for  several  years ;  lastly,  M.  Henri  Thuli^, 
to-day  a  distinguished  doctor  and  the  author  of  several 
very  remarkable  works,  and  who  has  been  latterly 
president  of  the  Municipal  Council  of  Paris. 

You  cannot  imagine  with  what  vigor  these  young 
men  flung  themselves  into  the  fight.  They  were  then 
twenty  or  twenty-five  years  old  ;  they  slept  with  boots 

306 


CRITICISM.  307 

and  spurs  on,  whip  in  hand,  and  lived  in  a  devil  of  a 
noise.  I  have  the  six  numbers  of  the  R^alisme  on  my 
desk  before  me,  and  there  comes  forth  from  these 
yellowed  pages  a  smell  of  battle  which  intoxicates  me. 
I  have  been  all  through  this  myself ;  I  know  these 
passionate  convictions  of  the  twentieth  year,  these  fine 
errors  and  these  fine  injustices.  You  do  not  know 
much  yet,  you  are  searching  still,  and  your  desire  is  to 
get  a  cleared  space  to  demolish  everything  in  order  to 
reconstruct  it  all  again  without  being  frightened  at  the 
immensity  of  the  labor,  thinking  in  all  good  faith  that 
you  are  about  to  give  birth  to  a  world.  These  are 
splendid  years,  and  happy  are  those  who  have  known 
them.  Later,  when  we  have  become  wise,  we  mourn 
these  vast  desires. 

But  making  a  noise  is  nothing ;  the  most  astound- 
ing thing  is  that  these  young  men  brought  on  a  revo- 
lution and  formulated  a  complete  body  of  doctrines. 
Certainly  realism  is  a  theory  as  old  as  the  world  ;  only 
it  is  rejuvenated  at  each  new  literary  period.  Admit- 
ting that  they  invented  nothing,  that  they  only  con- 
tinued the  movement  of  the  eighteenth  century — they 
had  nevertheless  the  astonishing  foresight  to  raise  the 
flag  of  realism  before  the  dying  agony  of  romanticism 
had  commenced  ;  before  anyone  had  yet  foreseen  the 
great  naturalistic  movement,  which  was  about  to  take 
place  in  our  literature  after  Balzac  and  Stendhal  had 
set  the  example.  They  were  critical  forerunners,  they 
announced  with  a  great  deal  of  noise  the  new  period, 
and  they  were  so  audacious  that  there  was  against  the 
little  paper  an  unprecedented  outburst.  The  whole 
literary  press  made  fun  of  them,  hurled  thunderbolts  at 
them.     Nobody  seemed  to  understand  them. 


3o8  CRITICISM. 

They  themselves,  I  must  confess,  did  not  seem  to  be 
well  settled  in  their  doctrine.  M.  Duranty  in  several 
places  explains  that  he  is  yielding  to  an  instinctive 
impulse  in  establishing  his  paper.  He  is  imbued  with 
a  feeling  of  the  future ;  he  has  thrown  himself  head- 
long on  this  side  in  order  to  follow  the  light.  As  he 
put  it  in  the  last  number :  "  In  the  first  number  the 
beast  Realism  could  be  seen  crawling  on  his  belly 
like  those  animals  born  of  chaos ;  later,  little  by  little, 
their  figures  became  clearer,  and  finally  the  wolf,  with 
bristling  hairs,  walks  in  the  roadway,  showing  his  teeth 
to  the  frightened  passers-by."  This  was  said  in  good 
faith ;  these  young  men  felt  that  ideas  would  come  to 
them  in  the  struggle,  that  they  would  become  hardened, 
and  that  they  would  in  the  end  succeed  in  finding  the 
victorious  formula.  But  it  was  too  soon,  without  doubt. 
I  will  tell  directly  why  this  first  effort  was  bound  to 
miscarry,  in  my  opinion. 

A  doctrine  does  not  grow  by  itself.  Men  are  neces- 
sary to  stir  up  people's  minds.  Our  three  enthusiasts 
set  out  in  this  fight  in  M.  Courbet  and  M.  Champ- 
fleury's  footsteps.  They  were  the  paving  stones  which 
they  threw  at  triumphant  romanticism.  They  took 
the  examples  which  they  had  at  hand  without  even  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  talents,  so  different,  of  their 
two  patrons.  Moreover,  Le  R^alisme  simply  contains  a 
study  on  M.  Champfleury,  and  there  are  even  restrictions 
in  that;  as  to  M.  Courbet,  he  rules  still  less,  he  receives 
commendation  only  here  and  there.  M.  Duranty  and 
his  friends  widened  the  question,  going  back  to  original 
principles ;  spoke  of  renovating  all  the  arts.  A  very 
good  story  has  been  told  me:  It  seems  Courbet  and 
M.  Champfleury  were  very  much  frightened  at  the  zeal 


CRITICISM.  309 

these  young  men  displayed  in  immolating  all  the 
powerful  ones  in  literature  on  the  altar  of  realism  ;  fear- 
ing to  be  compromised,  they  publicly  cut  themselves 
loose  from  their  terrible  defenders. 

In  the  main  this  furious  attack  was  directed  against 
romanticism.  We  must  remember  that  this  was  in  1856, 
and  that  Victor  Hugo  reigned  in  his  far-away  exile. 
Just  there  is  the  audacity  of  the  innovators,  the  fore- 
knowledge of  the  movement  which  was  to  increase  in 
speed  later.  Naturally  their  theories  remained  rather 
cloudy.  The  articles  are  a  little  heavy,  a  little  con- 
fused. I  am  far  from  accepting  all  their  ideas.  They 
seem  like  minds,  still  searching,  who  struggle  to  reach 
a  just  and  precise  formula.  I  am  going  to  indicate  by 
two  quotations  the  points  which  seem  to  me  absolutely 
clear. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  no  school :  "  This  terrible  word 
realism  is  the  opposite  of  the  word  school.  To  say 
the  realistic  school  is  to  talk  nonsense  ;  realism  signifies 
the  frank  and  complete  expression  of  individualities ; 
what  it  attacks  is  precisely  conventionality,  imitation, 
every  kind  of  school." 

Here  is  the  new  formula  : 

"  Realism  aims  at  the  exact,  complete,  and  sincere 
reproduction  of  the  social  surroundings  of  the  time  in 
which  we  live,  because  studies  in  such  a  direction  are 
justified  by  reason,  the  needs  of  the  understanding,  and 
the  public  interest,  and  because  they  are  exempt  from 
all  lies  and  all  trickery.  .  .  This  reproduction,  then, 
ought  to  be  as  simple  as  possible,  so  as  to  be  under- 
stood by  everybody." 

I  stop  here,  because  we  have  put  our  fingers  on  the 
principles  of  the  realists  of  1856.     Remember  that  they 


3*o  CRITICISM. 

are  sunk  in  the  midst  of  romanticism,  and  they  are 
going  forcibly  to  accomplish  a  work  of  reaction.  Then, 
as  to  the  character  of  the  movement  they  wished  to 
cause,  it  is  to  do  just  contrary  to  what  the  romanticists 
did.  They  exalted  sincerity,  simplicity,  and  natural- 
ness; they  meant  to  take  their  subjects  from  the  bour- 
geoisie, from  the  common  people.  And  as  it  was  a 
question  of  exaggerating  to  make  themselves  heard, 
they  restricted  the  literary  field  to  a  singular  extent. 
This  was  one  'of  their  greatest  faults.  No  one  will 
listen  to  them,  because  their  revolution  is  too  radical, 
and  because  a  literature  cannot  shut  itself  up  in  the  nar- 
row world  in  which  they  seemed  anxious  to  put  it. 

Yes,  without  doubt,  a  literature  is  more  complex  than 
that.  We  must  admit  the  depicting  of  all  classes.  I 
see  no  place  in  which  they  counsel  the  application  of 
the  naturalistic  method  to  all  characters,  prince  or  shep- 
herd, highborn  ladies  or  dairywomen.  You  will  say 
this  is  understood.  Not  at  all;  the  realism  of  1856 
was  exclusively  bourgeois.  It  did  not  go  out  of  a 
certain  limited  circle  either  in  its  theories  or  in  its 
works.  It  did  not  possess  the  breadth  which  compels 
recognition. 

Another  fault  which  they  committed,  and  which  was 
to  be  very  much  regretted,  was  their  violent  attack  on 
our  entire  literature.  I  have  never  seen  a  parallel 
slaughter.  Balzac,  even,  is  not  spared  ;  they  discussed 
him,  and  told  him  just  what  they  thought  of  him,  and 
all  the  time  they  expressed  much  admiration  for  him. 
I  do  not  speak  of  Victor  Hugo,  against  whom  they 
launched  a  thunderbolt.  It  was  essential  to  strike 
romanticism  on  the  head.  The  most  unfortunate  note 
is  a  short  criticism  on  "  Mme.  Bovary,"  which  had  just 


CRITICISM.  311 

appeared,  so  unjust  in  its  tone  that  it  is  a  matter  of 
profound  astonishment  to-day.  How  was  it  that  the 
realists  of  1856  did  not  understand  the  decisive  argu- 
ment which  Gustave  Flaubert  brought  to  bear  upon 
their  cause  ?  They  were  condemned  to  disappear  the 
next  day,  while  **  Mme.  Bovary  "  was  to  continue  their 
labor  victoriously  by  the  all-powerfulness  of  its  style. 

To  deny  poetry,  to  deny  all  contemporaneous  pro- 
ductions— this  savors  of  the  glorious  boldness  of  in- 
novators. But  in  this  case  it  is  necessary  to  fill  up  the 
void  which  has  been  made.  But  M.  Champfleury's 
shoulders  were  not  large  enough  to  fill  it  up.  His 
talent  was  very  individual,  very  fresh,  and  of  charming 
flavor;  only  he  lacked  the  amplitude,  the  masterly 
production  which  decides  literary  battles.  The  sol- 
diers were  conquered,  because  the  general  refused  to 
march  and  would  not  lead  them  to  victory.  I  put 
Courbet  to  one  side ;  I  content  myself  with  literature. 
Courbet  is  a  schoolmaster. 

Besides,  facts  have  decided  the  quarrel.  The  battle 
was  but  a  skirmish.  But  outside  of  this  defeat  of  the 
individuals  engaged  in  the  affair  remains  the  programme 
of  these  three  young  men,  who  started  up  one  fine 
morning  with  their  hands  full  of  truths.  They  speak 
first  and  with  a  superb  haughtiness.  Nothing  frightens 
them,  they  attack  every  question.  Duranty  takes 
charge  of  the  question  of  doctrine,  and  furnishes  six 
severe  articles  in  each  number;  Henri  Thulie  pub- 
lishes a  great  revolutionary  essay  on  the  novel ;  Jules 
Assezat,  the  calmest  of  the  three,  makes  a  charge  at  full 
speed  against  the  theater  of  that  time.  Novel,  theater, 
painting,  sculpture — they  reform  them  all !  And  when 
the  journal  was  about  to  go  under,  M.  Duranty,  in  his 


3^2  CRITICISM. 

last  article,  indicated  the  subjects  which  had  been 
mapped  out.  an  endless  list  of  essays  of  which  I  will 
quote  a  few :  "  A  Discussion  on  Literary  Prefaces  which 
have  appeared  since  1800";  ''The  Affiliations  of  the 
French  Intellect  in  its  Affectation,  from  the  Hotel  Ram- 
bouillet  to  Our  Own  Days";  "A  Little  History  of 
Literary  Variations ;  "  ''A  Work  on  the  Comic,  the 
Tragic,  the  Fantastic,  and  the  Honest";  etc., etc. 

Read  these  lines  which  M.  Duranty  wrote  when 
addressing  those  who  should  continue  his  work : 

"  I  would  advise  them  to  be  severe  and  haughty. 
For  one  year  everyone  will  ask  with  anger  and  raillery, 
'Who  are  these  young  people  who  have  never  done 
anything  and  yet  who  wish  to  regenerate  the  world?' 
At  the  end  of  eighteen  months  they  will  have  become 
men  of  letters.  A  writer's  value  can  never  be  stated 
at  his  beginning.  They  commence  by  trying  to 
scratch  him  with  their  nails,  with  their  beak,  with 
iron,  with  a  diamond,  and  all  the  hard  and  sharp  instru- 
ments used  by  a  critic ;  and  when  they  find,  after 
many  vain  endeavors,  that  he  is  not  friable  and  that  he 
resists,  everyone  doffs  his  hat  to  him  and  begs  him  to 
be  seated." 

Then  read  this  passage:  "  However,  the  newspaper 
will  have  lived  for  six  months,  without  funds,  battling 
against  everything,  and  I  consider  that  a  sufficient 
defense.  Everything  has  been  agitated.  Young  men 
under  thirty  years  of  age,  with  the  gayety  born  of 
want  of  foresight,  have  disowned  us  with  all  the  wit 
that  any  Frenchman  whatever  can  marshal  for  a 
defense  or  an  attack  of  a  position.  Others,  older  and 
more  experienced,  have  recognized  the  cloud  which 
announces  the  tempest,  and   the  tidal  wave  which  is 


CRITICISM.  313 

destined  to  drown  them,  and  they  have  filled  the 
reviews  and  the  newspapers  with  their  angry  lamen- 
tations. The  more  resistance  realism  meets  with,  the 
more  inevitably  it  will  conquer.  Where  there  is  to- 
day but  one  man  there  will  be  one  hundred  when  the 
drum  shall  be  beaten." 

These  lines  are  prophetic.  They  have  impressed 
me  deeply.  To-day  romanticism  is  dying,  naturalism 
is  triumphant.  On  all  sides  the  new  generation  is 
rising.  The  formula  is  enlarging ;  it  keeps  pace 
with  the  century.  It  is  no  longer  a  war  of  school 
against  school,  a  quarrel  of  phrases  more  or  less  well 
constructed :  it  is  rather  the  movement  of  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  day. 


THE  "PARISIAN  CHRONICLES"  OF  SAINTE- 
BEUVE. 

IT  is  known  that  these  chronicles  are  notes  which 
Sainte-Beuve  sent  in  the  most  secret  manner  to  La 
Revue  Suisse.  M.  Jules  Troubat,  in  an  excellent  pref- 
ace, has  explained  all  the  mechanism  of  these  transmis- 
sions. 

Now  that  we  have  attained  to  the  distance  necessary 
to  judge  the  great  critic,  he  appears  to  us  to  be  pos- 
sessed above  all  else  with  a  supple  intelligence,  curious 
about  all  things,  but  relishing  more  particularly  what 
was  delicate  and  complicated  in  things.  He  himself 
maintains  a  happy  equilibrium,  having  a  horror  of 
extremes,  and  irritated  by  the  outbursts  of  very  violent 
temperaments.  To-day  all  of  us  who  love  life  are  often 
charmed  by  Sainte-Beuve's  acuteness  when  we  come 
across  certain  of  his  pages  *in  which  he  has  set  forth 
with  quiet  bravery  the  experimental  method  which  we 
are  using  to-day.  Then,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  dis- 
concerted and  sorry  on  finding  a  Sainte-Beuve  who 
does  not  carry  out  his  opinions  to  their  natural  end, 
who  parades  the  tastes  and  the  opinions  of  a  bour- 
geois, frightened  by  the  logical  conclusions  of  what  he 
had  exposed  the  day  before.  Evidently  the  writer 
does  not  tell  all  that  the  man  thinks  ;  and  besides,  there 
was  in  him  something  feminine  which  delighted  in  hid- 
den implications  and  vaguenesses. 

Nothing  proves  this  better  than  the  "  Parisian  Chroni- 

314 


CRITICISM.  315 

cles."  At  Paris  he  was  choked  by  every  kind  of  relation, 
and  he  dreamed  of  being  free  somewhere  in  order  to 
say  what  he  really  thought.  He  therefore  sent  these 
notes  to  the  Revue  Suisse,  notes  which  the  editor  of 
this  review  made  into  articles  forming  a  regular  series. 
This  was  not  very  brave,  in  my  way  of  thinking.  But 
it  would  be  wrong  for  us  to  see  in  these  masked  judg- 
ments any  betrayal  of  trust.  It  all  depends  upon  the 
opinion  which  Sainte-Beuve  held  of  the  role  which  a 
critic  should  play.  He  looked  upon  it  as  a  public 
charge.  He  assumed  somewhat  the  position  of  a 
magistrate  in  discharge  of  official  duties.  From  this 
arises  his  idea  that  the  truth  might  be  brutal  and  in 
bad  taste.  He  seemed  to  think  that  he  had  charge  of 
souls ;  all  sorts  of  other  than  literary  considerations 
entered  into  his  judgments ;  you  never  had  the  exact 
truth  from  him,  but  a  truth  set  up  to  meet  the  wants  of 
the  moment ;  and  if  you  wanted  to  know  just  what  he 
thought  you  must  read  between  the  lines,  and  be  well 
acquainted  with  the  subject  which  he  was  treating, 
know  it  as  well  as  he  did,  and  re-establish  your  facts 
from  that  by  means  of  discreet  deductions.  It  was  a 
very  amusing  task,  but  a  horribly  complicated  one. 

Really  we  ought  first  to  examine  this  question  :  the 
true  purpose  of  criticism,  and  how  attained.  I  believe, 
in  fact,  that  an  absolute  frankness  is  healthier  than  all 
this  crafty  politeness.  If  it  is  necessary  to  kill  a  man 
you  might  as  well  cut  his  head  off  at  once  as  assassi- 
nate him  with  pin  pricks.  I  know  very  well  that  under 
•this  brutal  system  of  saying  everything,  worldly  rela- 
tions are  no  longer  possible ;  besides,  it  has  a  scientific 
rigor  which  frightens  men  of  letters.  But  the  work 
seems  to  me  more  honest  and  more  moral.     Moreover, 


3l6  CRITICISM. 

on  Sainte-Beuve's  part  it  was  not  only  prudence,  it  was 
the  way  he  v/as  made. 

To  return  to  the  ''  Parisian  Chronicles  "  :  the  revela- 
tions which  they  make  are  not  very  terrible.  I  do  not 
know  whether  the  editor  has  stricken  out  the  things 
which  seemed  too  harsh  to  him,  but  it  surprises  me 
that  Sainte-Beuve  thought  it  necessary  to  disguise  his 
authorship  in  order  to  express  such  opinions.  Here  is 
found  again  his  desertion  of  the  romantic  camp,  his 
criticisms  of  Hugo,  whom  he  flattered  the  day  before. 
Then  the  instinctive  horror  which  he  felt  for  Balzac ; 
but  these  are  all  attitudes  with  which  we  were  familiar. 
It  must  be  that  truth  frightened  Sainte-Beuve  very 
much  to  make  him  think  it  necessary  to  go  to  Swit- 
zerland when  he  had  such  simple  things  to  say. 

What  has  impressed  me  is  this,  that  the  day  after 
the  production  of  "  Les  Burgraves "  Sainte-Beuve 
expressed  about  the  stage  almost  the  same  ideas  which 
I  defend,  and  which  still  seem  revolutionary  to-day. 
Here  I  will  give  a  few  quotations. 

This  is  what  Sainte-Beuve  says  of  **  Les  Burgraves,'' 
which  he  has  not  even  seen  played  yet :  "  It  seems 
indeed  that  it  is  fine,  but  above  all  solemn,  writes  Janin  ; 
in  good  French,  tiresome.  You  listen  to  it,  but  with- 
out feeling  any  pleasure."  This  same  Janin,  who  has 
praised  it  through  necessity  in  Les  D^bats,  said  out 
loud  in  the  crowded  foyer  of  the  theater,  so  that  anyone 
who  wanted  to  could  hear  him  :  "  If  I  were  Minister 
of  the  Interior  I  would  decorate  the  one  who  hissed  it 
first."  This  really  showed  some  courage.  And  later  on . 
he  writes  these  lines,  full  of  delightful  wickedness : 
*'  *  Les  Burgraves  '  has  not  really  succeeded  ;  the  piece 
is  not  a  success,  notwithstanding  the  reports.     The  first 


CRITICISM.  317 

three  times  the  house  was  filled  with  friends  ;  the  fourth 
or  fifth  time  the  public  hissed  so  much  toward  the  end 
that  they  found  it  necessary  to  lower  the  curtain. 
Since  that  time  the  representations  are  always  more  or 
less  stormy.  The  newspapers  favorable  to  Hugo  .  .  . 
say  that  this  fact  is  unexplainable,  and  that  there  is  I 
know  not  what  cabal  against  it.  Nothing  is  easier  to 
explain.  They  hiss  ;  Hugo  does  not  like  this  word,  and 
says  before  the  actors  :  '  They  disturb  my  play.'  The 
actors,  who  are  a  little  malicious,  have  said  since  that 
day  '  disturb  *  instead  of  *  hiss.*  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  *  Judith '  (or  any  other  play)  will  succeed,  and 
that  it  will  not  be  *  disturbed.'  This  word  is  a  curious 
one,  coming  from  the  school  of  proper  words." 

Upon  the  whole,  Sainte-Beuve  greets  "  Lucrece,"  by 
Ponsard,  as  a  protestation  against  the  romantic  school. 
It  manifestly  won  his  sympathy,  even  though  he  does 
not  hail  it  as  a  chef-d'oeuvre.  However,  I  suppose  he 
was  not  deceived  about  the  absolute  value  of  the  work  ; 
he  regarded  it  simply  as  a  good  howitzer  in  the  war  he 
was,  waging. 

But  here  is  the  passage  which  has  impressed  me 
most :  "  Decidedly  the  school  is  drawing  near  its  end  [the 
romantic  school]  ;  we  must  *  bore  for  another ' ;  the 
public  will  not  awaken  except  for  an  unforeseen  novelty. 
I  hope  that  this  revolution  will  come  from  the  theater, 
and  from  the  midst  of  our  anarchy ;  there  will  burst 
forth  from  that  direction  a  literary  i8th  Brumaire.  The 
theater,  the  ground  most  affected  by  modern  art,  is  also 
the  one  which,  with  us,  has  produced  the  least,  and  has 
belied  all  our  hopes.  For  what  admirable  yet  unfruit- 
ful preparations  have  we  not  made  for  more  than 
twenty  years.     Translations  of  foreign  plays,  analytical 


3i8  CRITICISM. 

and  critical  studies,  essays,  and  specimens  of  written 
dramas :  '  Barricades/  '  Etats  de  Blois/  '  Clara  Gazul,' 
'  Soirees  de  Neuilly/  dramas  by  M.  de  Remusat, 
modern  prefaces,  *  Cromwell '  —  and  then  what  ? 
'  Hernani ' !  then  nothing — a  heavy  fall !  Dumas  has 
squandered  his  powers ;  De  Vigny  has  never  exerted 
himself ;  Hugo  has  overloaded  himself.  It  is  in  the 
theater  that  so  much  remains  to  be  done,  and  here 
finally,  before  a  blas^  public,  which  they  will  awaken — 
the  great  ideas  stirring  in  the  air  for  the  last  fifty  years 
will  be  given  expression." 

Remember  that  this  was  written  in  1843,  thirty-six 
years  ago.  Now  I  do  not  say  anything  different  to-day. 
However,  it  has  come  to  pass  in  a  way  that  Sainte- 
Beuve  never  foresaw.  The  awakening,  which  he  ex- 
pected by  means  of  the  stage,  has  taken  place  through 
the  novel.  It  is  Balzac — this  Balzac  whose  power  he 
never  understood — who  has  accomplished  the  literary 
1 8th  Brumaire  of  which  he  spoke.  To-day  the  situation 
on  the  stage  is  almost  the  same ;  we  look,  as  usual,  for 
a  stroke  of  genius  to  drag  us  out  of  our  anarchy  ;  only 
it  has  become  evident  that  the  theater  will  never  emerge 
from  its  mess  but  by  following  the  naturalistic  novel 
on  its  path.  Sainte-Beuve  exhibits  the  situation,  but 
he  foresees  nothing.  The  facts,  as  we  see  them  now> 
show  where  the  strength  of  the  century  lies — in  Balzac 
and  his  followers,  who,  I  think,  will  next  conquer  the 
stage  by  the  employment  of  their  methods. 

At  the  end  of  the  volume  Sainte-Beuve  laments  the 
dramatic  miscarriage  of  his  age.  He  does  not  clearly 
see  why  all  has  crumbled,  but  he  states  the  fact  of  the 
disaster.  According  to  him,  we  can  still  hope  even  after 
'*  Hernani."     "  At  the  commencement  of  1830,"  he  says, 


CRITICISM.  319 

"  '  Hernani '  came,  bringing  a  change,  and  was  like  the 
awakening  of  a  new  hope ;  it  was  strange,  it  was  partly- 
historic,  it  was  more  than  human,  and  decidedly  super- 
natural ;  but,  more  than  that,  it  had  sparkle,  poetry, 
novelty,  and  audacity."  However,  this  hope  was  soon 
disappointed  by  what  followed  "  Hernani  "  ;  the  plays 
which  the  romantic  school  produced  afterward  pro- 
voked him,  and  he  burst  forth  with  this  cry :  "  History 
falsified,  an  absence  of  study  in  the  subjects,  something 
monstrous  and  furious  in  the  sentiments  and  the  pas- 
sions— this  is  what  has  burst  forth  and  overflowed  us  ; 
we  believed  we  were  clearing  the  way  and  opening  a 
passage  to  a  chivalric  and  audacious  army,  but  withal 
civilized,  and  it  has  turned  out  to  be  an  invasion  by  a 
horde  of  barbarians." 

Sainte-Beuve  remains  bewildered.  He  no  longer 
knows  in  what  direction  things  are  going,  he  no  longer 
dares  ta  prophesy  at  all.  The  labor  of  the  century 
escapes  him  entirely.  He  does  not  even  seem  to 
understand  that  if  romanticism  goes  to  pieces  so 
quickly,  it  is  because  it  brings  with  it  the  immediate 
causes  of  dissolution.  He  does  not  understand  either 
that  the  outburst  of  1830  was  a  simple  cry  for  deliver- 
ance, that  the  true  man  of  the  century  is  Balzac,  that\ 
romanticism,  in  a  word,  is  the  initial  and  troubled  period 
of  naturalism.  From  this  come  his  perplexities  on  the 
dramatic  side  of  the  epoch.  He  talks  about  this  thing 
with  the  intelligence  of  an  amateur  ;  he  has  not  thrown 
a  single  ray  of  light  on  the  literary  evolution  which  has 
been  accomplished  in  the  novel  and  which  will  be 
accomplished  on  the  stage. 

Besides,  in  my  opinion,  a  critic  who  has  not  under- 
stood Balzac  may  be  a  very  delicate  analyzer  and  may 


320  •  CRITICISM. 

possess  a  very  flexible  intelligence,  but  he  is  not,  most 
assuredly,  one  of  those  superior  intellects  who  have  a 
perfect  understanding  of  their  age.  I  am  well  aware 
that  there  was  in  this  case  a  natural  antipathy,  but, 
while  loving  neither  the  man  nor  his  work,  the  point 
was  to  divine  the  decisive  influence  which  Balzac  was 
to  have  over  the  second  half  of  the  century. 

Listen  to  the  way  in  which  he  speaks  of  Balzac,  apro- 
pos of  the  success  which  Eugene  Sue  had  just  attained 
with  his  "  Myst^res  de  Paris:  "  "What  is  best  in  his 
coming  [the  coming  of  Eugene  Sue]  is  that  he  sweeps 
the  ground  clear  and  simplifies  it.  Balzac  and  Fre- 
deric Soulie  are  put  to  one  side.  Balzac,  ruined,  and 
more  than  ruined,  has  gone  to  Saint  Petersburg,  giving 
out  in  the  newspapers  that  he  has  only  gone  for  his 
health  and  that  he  has  decided  to  write  nothing  oh 
Russia."  Can  we  stand  this  to-day  ?  "  Les  Mysteres  de 
Paris  "  sweeping  away  Balzac's  works  !  Eug^n^Sue  and 
Frederic  Soulie  put  for  one  instant  on  a  par  with  the 
author  of  "  La  Comedie  Humaine  "  !  These  are  some  of 
the  foolish  criticisms  that  a  short-sighted  critic  alone 
could  make.  When  a  man  can  see  no  more  clearly 
into  the  work  and  the  strength  of  a  writer  than  this, 
doubts  arise  as  to  the  soundness  of  his  critical  faculty 
in  general,  and  he  loses  at  once  all  the  rights  which  he 
may  have  had  to  lay  down  definite  judgments. 

I  will  give  one  more  quotation  :  "  Balzac's  novel '  Mo- 
deste  Mignon'  is  dedicated  to  '  a  foreigner,  daughter  of 
an  enslaved  land,  an  angel  in  her  love,  a  demon  in  her 
imagination,'  etc.  Has  anyone  ever  read  such  gibber- 
ish ?  Why  does  not  ridicule  scourge  such  writers,  and 
through  what  concession  does  a  newspaper  which 
respects  itself  open  its  columns  to  them  ?    This  novel 


CRITICISM.  321 

of  Balzac's  was  announced  several  days  ago,  in  Les 
Debais,  by  a  letter  from  the  author  the  most  ambigu- 
ous, the  most  affected  and  ridiculous  that  anyone  could 
read,  all  this  to  get  up  some  curiosity  in  the  public 
mind.  They  who  insert  such  fiddle-faddle  despise  it, 
doubtless,  but  they  think  they  must  serve  to  the  pub- 
lic what  they  ask  for." 

All  Sainte-Beuve's  method  of  working  is  shown  here. 
He  stops  at  the  rornantic  style  of  a  dedication,  and 
he  does  not  penetrate  to  Balzac's  true  strength,  that 
naturalistic  method  which  is  about  to  appear.  He 
utters  the  judgment  of  an  exasperated  rhetorician  ;  he 
does  not  rise  to  the  role  of  the  analyzer,  who  with  thor- 
ough self-mastery  sets  forth  clearly  the  strength  of  a 
writer.  Passion  blinded  him.  The  exuberant  tem- 
perament of  Balzac  took  away  his  sense  of  justice.  In 
the  last  years  of  his  life  he  still  showed  himself  stupe- 
fied at  the  decisive  influence  of  Stendhal  and  Balzac  on 
the  French  novel.  He  died  without  caring  to  under- 
stand. This  is  for  me  a  fact  which  settles  the  caliber 
of  Sainte-Beuve.  He  was  like  one  of  those  nobles  of 
the  old  regime,  who,  after  having  adopted  the  ideas  of 
the  Revolution,  refused  to  go  to  the  end,  profoundly 
worried  and  not  understanding  it.  He  applied  the 
scientific  method  to  criticism,  only  the  old-fashioned 
man  in  him  revolted  when  he  saw  this  method  carried 
into  the  novel  with  a  revolutionary  violence.  Thence 
come  these  contradictions  in  a  critic  who  wished  to 
master  everything,  and  who,  after  having  thrown  light 
on  a  thousand  minor  points,  refused  to  understand 
through  what  new  gaps  the  broad  daylight  was  to 
come. 


HECTOR  BERLIOZ. 

1HAVE  just  read  a  book  which  has  profoundly 
touched  me — "  The  Unpublished  Correspondence 
of  Hector  Berlioz."  I  do  not  intend  to  speak  of  music 
— I  should  be  incompetent.  I  wish  merely  to  exhibit 
a  particular  point  of  view,  to  study  in  Berlioz  only  the 
man  of  genius,  for  so  long  a  time  misunderstood,  exas- 
perated by  the  fierce  daily  struggle,  hooted  at  and 
hissed  at  in  France,  while  they  applauded  him  in  for- 
eign lands,  triumphing  at  last  only  in  his  death,  after 
having  borne  for  six  years  the  agony  of  the  final  failure 
of  "  Les  Troyeans." 

Further  than  this  my  work  will  be  very  simple,  as  I 
shall  confine  myself  to  quotations.  Here  are  the  true 
facts : 

In  an  excellent  biographical  notice  with  which  M. 
Daniel  Bernard  has  introduced  "  La  Correspondence  '* 
I  find,  in  the  first  place,  some  precious  information. 
You  must  call  to  mind  the  stories  which  were  current 
about  Berlioz  during  his  life.  They  made  him  out  to 
be  a  fool  and  a  knave,  an  artist  whose  immeasurable 
pride  could  tolerate  no  rival.  The  newspapers  of  the 
time  painted  him  thus :  *'  This  unappreciated  musician 
despises  profoundly  what  is  commonly  called  the  pub- 
lic, but  in  compensation  he  has  only  a  moderate  amount 
of  esteem  for  the  artists  who  are  his  contemporaries. 
If  you  mention  Meyerbeer — *  Hum  !  hum  !  he  has  some 
talent,  I    do  not   deny   it,  but   he  sacrifices   it  to  the 

322 


CRITICISM.  323 

demands  of  fashion.'  And  M.  Auber?  '  Composer  of 
quadrilles  and  songs.*  Bellini  ?  Donizetti  ?  *  Italians  ! 
Italians  !     Light  musicians,  much  too  light.'  " 

And  this  is  not  all.  As  M.  Daniel  Bernard  tells  us, 
they  credited  Berlioz  with  the  most  ridiculous  criti- 
cisms. A  man  of  struggles,  having  to  battle  in  order 
to  assert  his  ideas,  he  had  fortified  himself  behind  his 
regular  short  article  in  the  Journal  des  D^bats,  in  which 
he  bombarded  his  numerous  adversaries,  who  treated 
him  with  the  current  stupidity.  It  was  no  use  to  say 
white ;  they  made  him  out  to  have  said  black.  This 
is  a  strange,  astonishing  phenomenon,  which  is  always 
taking  place.  The  thing  written,  which  everyone  can 
read,  ought  to  be  a  fact,  it  would  seem.  Well,  it  is  not 
at  all.  Berlioz,  writing  about  Mozart's  "  Idomenee  "  : 
"  What  a  miracle  of  beauty  !  What  music  !  How  pure  ! 
What  an  odor  of  antiquity !  "  And  they  read  :  ^'  Mozart 
has  no  talent ;  nobody  has  any  talent ;  I  alone  in- 
vented music."  Explain  this  phenomenon  if  you  can  ; 
it  takes  place  every  time  that  an  artist  sure  of  his 
own  power  addresses  the  limited  mind  of  the  average 
fool. 

"  Once  for  all,"  says  M.  Daniel  Bernard,  "  let  us  estab- 
lish the  fact  that  Berlioz  never  made  any  pretension 
to  the  role  which  certain  composers  have  claimed  since. 
He  did  not  boast  of  being  the  '  only '  one  of  his  kind, 
and  did  not  believe  that  before  he  came  music  was  an 
unknown,  shadowy,  uncultivated  science ;  far  from 
despising  the  ancients  he  bows  before  them,  reverently 
worshiping  the  gods  of  symphony.  He  only  claimed 
(what  it  seems  to  us  he  justified)  that  he  was  continuing 
and  enlarging  the  old  musical  traditions,  and  improving 
them,  thanks  to  modern  resources." 


324  CRITICISM. 

Moreover,  he  had  ardent  likings.  He  defended  Liszt 
with  an  extraordinary  passion.  If  he  made  a  continual 
massacre  of  comic  operas,  he  was  seized  with  a  veritable 
rush  of  devotion  toward  the  works  which  he  loved.  He 
was  a  believer  in  himself,  with  a  tinge  of  fanaticism  in 
his  ideas,  violently  irritated  by  the  injustice  of  his  con- 
temporaries. I  borrow  a  few  more  lines  from  M.  Dan- 
iel Bernard,  which  recapitulate  very  clearly  Berlioz's 
troubled  life : 

'*  There  existed  excellent  reasons  why  Berlioz  should 
be  attacked,  discussed,  and  calumniated  by  his  compet- 
itors, who,  having  talent,  could  not  forgive  him  for  hav- 
ing genius,  and  by  those,  much  more  numerous,  who, 
possessing  neither  talent  nor  genius,  rushed  to  the 
assault  of  no  matter  what  genuine  reputation,  without 
hope  of  benefiting  themselves  in  any  way,  and  only  for 
the  mere  pleasure  of  destruction.  Crowned  with  laurels 
in  foreign  lands,  Berlioz  was  irritated  on  finding  in  the 
leaves  of  these  triumphant  crowns  Parisian  mosquitoes 
which  stung  him.  He  was  more  preoccupied  with  the 
hatred  which  he  encountered  in  his  own  country  than 
the  triumphant  ovations  which  awaited  him  beyond  its 
borders — in  London,  in  Saint  Petersburg,  in  Vienna,  in 
Weimar,  and  Lowenberg.'* 

One  last  quotation  of  M.  Daniel  Bernard,  a  phrase 
which  struck  me  as  being  very  well  put :  "  Certain  crit- 
ics thought  they  had  destroyed  him  once  and  for  all, 
or  they  imagined  that  they  so  thought ;  for,  in  truth, 
they  were  not  very  sure  of  it." 

But  it  is  time  to  let  Berlioz  speak  for  himself.  I 
will  take  paragraphs  from  here  and  there,  in  which  he 
gives  expression  to  all  his  bitterness  against  Paris  and 
France.     It  is  an  ever  open  wound ;  it  is  a  continual 


CRITICISM.  3^5 

revolt  ^against  stupidity,  mingled  with  a  deep  sorrow, 
at  finding  himself  chased  from  his  own  country. 

The  14th  of  January,  1848,  he  writes  from  London 
to  M.  Auguste  Morel :  "  As  to  France,  I  no  longer 
think  of  her.  .  .  The  reason  is  this  :  after  comparing 
together  the  impressions  which  my  music  has  produced 
on  all  the  audiences  of  Europe  who  have  listened  to  it, 
I  am  forced  to  .conclude  that  it  is  the  Parisian  audi- 
ences who  understand  it  the  least.  Is  it  not  strange 
that  at  the  concerts  of  the  Conservatoire  they  play  the 
works  of  all  those  who  have  any  name  whatsoever 
except  mine?  Is  it  not  offensive  for  me  to  see  the 
Opera  having  always  recourse  to  those  musical  bunglers, 
and  its  directors  always  armed  against  me  with  preju- 
dices which  I  should  blush  to  combat  if  I  tried  to  force 
their  hand  ?  Does  not  the  press  become  every  day 
more  base  ?  Do  you  ever  see  anything  now  (with  rare 
exceptions)  but  intrigue,  base  transactions,  and  idiocy? 
.  .  .  And  do  you  suppose  that  I  am  the  dupe  of  a 
crowd  of  people,  with  forced  smiles  on  their  faces,  who 
conceal  their  nails  and  their  teeth  only  because  they 
know  I  have  claws  and  means  of  defense?  To  see 
everywhere  only  imbecility,  indifference,  ingratitude,  or 
terror — that  is  my  lot  in  Paris." 

The  15th  of  March,  1848;  he  writes  from  London  to 
M.  Joseph  d'Ortigue :  "  I  can  no  longer  think  of  a 
musical  career  anywhere  except  in  England  or  Russia. 
It  is  a  long  time  ago  now  since  I  gave  up  France  as 
hopeless;  the  last  revolution  makes  my  decision  more 
firm  and  more  indispensable.  I  had  to  struggle  under 
the  old  government  against  hatred  disseminated  by 
newspaper  critics,  against  the  absurdity  of  those  who 
govern  our  theaters,  and  the  indifference  of  the  public ; 


326  CRITICISM. 

I  should  now  have  in  addition  the  great  crowd  of  grand 
composers  which  the  RepubHc  has  just  hatched,  with 
their  music — popular,  philanthropic,  national,  and  eco- 
nomic. France,  from  a  musical  point  of  view,  is  but  a 
country  of  idiots  and  rogues ;  one  must  be  devilishly 
patriotic  not  to  recognize  this." 

The  2 1  St  of  January,  1852,  he  wrote  from  Paris  to 
M.  Alexis  Levoff :  "  Nothing  further  is  possible  in 
Paris ;  and  I  think  that  next  month  I  shall  return  to 
England,  where  the  desire  to  love  music  is,  at  least, 
real  and  persistent.  Here  every  place  is  taken  ;  men  of 
little  ability  eat  up  everything  among  them,  and  one 
witnesses  the  fights  and  repasts  of  these  dogs  with  as 
much  anger  as  disgust.  The  judgments  of  the  press 
and  the  public  are  so  absurd  and  so  frivolous  that  no 
other  nation  can  approach  them." 

The  9th  of  January,  1856,  he  writes  from  Paris  to  M. 
Auguste  Morel :  '^  On  every  side  all  you  can  see  are 
tricks,  meannesses,  fooleries,  knaveries,  nonsense, 
roguery,  knaves,  fools,  mean  men,  and  tricksters.  I 
remove  myself  more  and  more  apart  from  this  empois- 
oned world  of  poisoners." 

The  2 1st  of  February,  1861,  he  wrote  from  Paris  to 
his  son  Louis  Berlioz  :  ''  The  professors  of  notes  [mu- 
sical notes]  have  provoked  me  at  last ;  you  have  seen 
in  my  article  of  the  19th  to  what  lengths  they  have  gone, 
and  what  a  knock  on  the  head  they  obliged  me  to  give 
them.  Read  this  to  Morel,  who  was  insulted  by  them 
some  years  ago.  .  .  I  have  never  had  so  many  wind- 
mills to  battle  with  as  this  year.  I  am  surrounded  by 
all  kinds  of  fools.  There  are  times  when  I  am  choked 
with  anger." 

I  could  multiply  these  quotations,  in  which  we  see 


CRITICISM.  327 

this  poor,  great  man  exasperated  in  the  struggle  against 
the  attacks  which  are  made  against  his  genius.  Anger 
carries  him  out  of  himself ;  epithets  run  out  one  after 
another ;  he  is  continually  under  arms  to  repulse  the 
attacks ;  and  you  perceive  an  incurable  sadness  in  his 
bosom,  the  cut  of  the  knife  that  the  frivolity  of  his 
dear  and  detested  Paris  has  planted  full  in  his  heart, 
and  from  which  he  will  die.  In  his  sadness  consolation 
comes  to  him  only  from  foreigners.  When  he  smiles 
it  is  at  his  triumphs  in  some  distant  place,  in  Berlin  or 
in  London. 

"  I  received  a  letter  yesterday,  from  an  unknown  gen- 
tleman, on  my  share  of  '  Les  Troyeans.'  He  told  me 
that  the  Parisians  were  accustomed  to  a  music  more 
indulgent  than  mine.  This  expression  has  delighted 
me."  (Letter  to  Mme.  Ernst,  Paris,  December  14, 
1864.) 

"  Here  is  another  bulletin  from  the  great  army  of 
bulletins.  .  .  The  second  representation  of  *  Beatrice 'at 
Weimar  was  all  they  had  told  me  it  would  be ;  I  was 
called  before  the  curtain  after  the  first  and  second  acts. 
I  will  spare  you  all  the  charming  flatteries  addressed 
to  me  by  the  artists  and  the  grand  duke."  (Letter 
written  to  M.  and  Mme.  Massart,  Lowenberg,  April  19, 

1863.) 

"  I  write  you  three  lines  so  that  you  may  know  that 
I  obtained  a  wonderful  success  last  evening.  Called 
before  the  curtain  I  cannot  tell  you  how  many  times, 
hailed  both  \sic\  as  composer  and  leader  of  the  orches- 
tra. This  morning  I  read  in  The  Times,  The  Morning 
Post,  The  Mor7ii?ig  Herald,  The  Advertiser,  and  still 
others,  dithyrambics  such  as  have  never  been  written 
about  me  before.     I  have  just  written  to  M.  Bertin,  so 


32S  CRITICISM. 

that  our  friend  Raymond,  of  the  Journal  des  Debuts, 
can  make  a  pot-pourri  of  all  these  articles,  so  that 
they  will  at  least  know  the  thing  as  it  is."  (Letter  to 
M.  Joseph  d'Ortigue,  London,  24th  of  March,  1852.) 

And  such  was  his  life  to  his  last  hour:  hooted  at  in 
France,  applauded  by  foreigners.  I  will  terminate  my 
quotations  by  a  page  of  cruel  irony.  It  had  been 
announced  that  Berlioz  was  about  to  set  out  for  Ger- 
many, where  he  had  been  appointed  chapel  master. 
It  was  then  the  22d  of  January,  1834;  he  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  M.  Brandus  : 

"  The  fact  is  that  I  am  about  to  quit  France  some 
day  for  several  years,  but  the  orchestra  the  direction  of 
which  has  been  given  to  me  is  not  in  Germany.  And 
since  everything  is  known  in  this  devil  of  a  Paris,  I 
wish  to  tell  you  now  the  place  of  my  future  resi- 
dence. I  am  appointed  director-general  of  the  private 
concerts  of  Queen  Ora,  at  Madagascar.  The  orchestra 
of  her  Majesty  Ora,  is  composed  of  Malayan  artists, 
who  are  very  distinguished  in  their  own  country,  and 
a  few  Malgaches  of  great  talent.  They  do  not  like 
white  people,  it  is  true,  and  I  should  have  a  great 
deal  to  suffer  in  this  strange  country,  in  the  first  days, 
if  so  many  people  in  Europe  had  not  taken  pains  to 
blacken  me.  I  hope  thus  to  reach  my  new  surround- 
ings bronzed  against  their  viciousness.  In  the  mean- 
time, be  kind  enough  to  say  to  your  readers  that  I 
shall  continue  to  dwell  in  Paris  as  much  as  possible,  to 
go  to  the  theaters  as  little  as  possible,  but  to  go  there 
nevertheless,  and  to  fulfill  my  duties  as  critic  as  before, 
nay,  even  more  carefully.  I  wish  as  a  conclusion  to 
give  myself  up  to  it  to  my  heart's  content,  all  the  more 
that  there  are  no  newspapers  at  Madagascar." 


CRITICISM.  329 

Now  what  moral  can  be  drawn  from  all  this  ?  Since 
Berlioz's  death  we  know  what  his  triumph  has  been. 
To-day  we  bow  reverently  before  his  tomb,  and  pro- 
claim him  the  glory  of  our  modern  school.  This 
great  man  whom  they  vilified,  whom  they  dragged 
in  the  gutter  during  his  life,  is  applauded  in  his  coffin. 
All  the  lies  circulated  about  him,  all  the  odious  and 
ridiculous  stories,  all  the  silly  attacks,  all  the  efforts  of 
hatred  and  envy  to  soil  him  have  disappeared  like 
dust  swept  away  by  the  wind  ;  and  he  remains  stand- 
ing alone  in  his  glory.  It  is  London,  it  is  St.  Peters- 
burg, it  is  Berlin,  alas  !  which  were  right  in  opposition  to 
Paris.  But  do  you  think  that  this  example  will  cure  the 
crowd  of  its  frivolity,  and  fools  of  their  spite,  when 
brought  face  to  face  with  individual  talent?  Ah,  no! 
To-morrow  an  original  musician  may  be  born,  and  he 
will  find  exactly  the  same  hisses,  the  same  calumnies, 
and  will  have  to  commence  exactly  the  same  battle 
should  he  desire  the  same  victory.  Stupidity  and 
unfairness  are  eternal. 


CHAUDES-AIGUES   AND   BALZAC. 

I  HAVE  made  a  find.  I  have  discovered  a  volume 
entitled  "  The  Modern  Writers  of  France."  It  was 
published  by  Gasselin  in  1841,  and  its  author  was  a 
critic  named  Chaudes-Aigues,  who  has  been  dead  some 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  I  believe,  and  who  to-day  is 
completely  forgotten.  I  remember  to  have  read  in  the 
Revue  de  Paris  an  article  in  which  Asselineau  speaks 
of  this  Chaudes-Aigues  as  a  talented  man  of  letters, 
endowed  with  a  delicate  and  sagacious  mind.  At  any 
rate,  without  being  in  the  first  rank,  Chaudes-Aigues 
occupied  an  honorable  place  in  the  literature  of  the 
age.  One  may  say  that  he  represented  the  average 
opinion ;  that  he  occupied  then  such  a  place  as  many 
of  our  critics  who  are  attentively  listened  to  do  to-day. 
Besides,  the  proof  that  his  essays  were  valuable  is  that 
he  found  a  pubHsher  willing  to  gather  them  up  into  a 
book. 

Now,  in  turning  the  leaves  of  this  volume,  I  have 
come  across  a  criticism  on  Balzac  which  nowadays  is 
the  height  of  absurdity.  It  is  complete,  and  it  sums 
up  the  absurdity  of  an  epoch.  Here  we  witness  this 
everlasting  rage  of  commonplace  natures  and  this 
eternal  negation  that  the  blind  throw  at  powerful  per- 
sonalities. But  what  makes  it  funny  is  that  we  are 
already  posterity,  and  we  are  seized  with  laughter  when 
we  put  Balzac  face  to  face  with  Chaude-Aigues,  this 
giant  of  the  modern  novel,  beside  this  ridiculous  non- 
330 


CRITICISM,  331 

entity,  who  tries  to  bespatter  him  with  mud  and  only 
succeeds  in  bespattering  himself.  What  a  fine  spec- 
tacle, and  what  a  lesson !  Snarl,  insult,  lie,  be  fools, 
denounce,  make  yourselves  spies  and  jailers,  drag  their 
works  into  the  mud,  and  see  the  result.  Those  whom 
you  defame  have  grown  and  shine  in  the  light  of  your 
grandchildren's  admiration,  while  your  odious  and 
imbecile  judgments,  when  they  are  found  again,  make 
the  remembrance  of  you  an  object  of  shame  and  a 
laughing-stock. 

I  wish  to  resurrect  Chaudes-Aigues.  It  will  be  a 
good  example  to  hold  up  before  our  barkers  of  to-day. 
It  is  necessary  to  make  a  certain  school  of  criticism 
smell  its  own  filth.  You  will  see  that  nothing  is 
changed.  The  accusations  are  always  of  the  same 
nature,  and  talent  does  not  fare  any  worse. 

I  will  therefore  content  myself  with  certain  quota- 
tions. It  will  be  sufficient  to  have  some  samples  under 
our  eyes.  In  the  first  place,  Chaudes-Aigues  sings 
a  triumphant  paean,  filling  ten  pages,  because  Balzac 
has  taken  the  liberty  of  making  certain  changes  in  the 
classification  of  his  works.  We  know  that  the  great 
novelist  conceived  only  as  an  afterthought  the  idea  of 
connecting  his  novels  by  a  common  tie,  under  the  com- 
prehensive title  of  "  La  Com^'die  Humaine,"  and  even 
then  he  hesitated  a  Httle,  and  modified  the  order  of  the 
different  parts  several  times.  There  was  evidently 
nothing  in  all  that  that  lessened  the  novelist's  talent ; 
we  do  not  busy  ourselves  with  these  things  to-day  ;  but 
Chaudes-Aigues  is  exultant ;  he  imagines  that  he 
has  confounded  Balzac  in  waging  this  war  of  details 
against  him ;  and  when  he  has  proved  that  certain 
works   are    not   in   their   proper   place   he    exults,   he 


33^  CRITICISM. 

boasts  of  having  put  *'  La  Comedie  Humaine  "  in  the 
dust.  Poor  man  !  He  says  in  conclusion:  '■'■  Once  we 
have  brought  to  the  meditations  of  M.  de  Balzac's 
most  enthusiastic  admirers  this  new  inventory  of  his 
works,  we  shall  listen  with  indifferent  ears  to  M.  de 
Balzac's  unbounded  boasts  of  the  architectural  marvels 
of  which  he  dreams.  Who  could  think,  however,  with- 
out smiles  of  this  future  cathedral  of  M.  de  Balzac  ?  " 
Certainly  we  smile  to-day,  but  we  smile  at  M.  Chaudes- 
Aigues. 

What  put  Chaudes-Aigues  beside  himself  was  more 
especially  Balzac's  attitude.  Listen  to  him :  "  Each 
time  that  M.  de  Balzac  rolls  into  the  public  square 
one  of  the  stones  of  his  edifice,  it  is  to  the  sound  of  a 
trumpet,  and  with  a  blatant  preface  in  which  he  takes 
a  particular  care  to  announce  that  if  the  temple  is  not 
yet  finished  it  is  only  on  account  of  the  immensity 
of  the  design."  Naturally  Balzac  would  be  accused  of 
being  a  charlatan ;  that  was  in  the  order  of  things. 
He  had  his  ideas  to  defend.  He  fought  boldly  in  the 
midst  of  heated  adversaries ;  and  this  was  pure  char- 
latanism !  Besides,  his  masterpieces  were  so  out- 
rageous as  to  create  a  great  noise,  and  his  publishers 
committed  the  crime  of  wishing  to  sell  them.  Chaudes- 
Aigues,  in  addition,  shrugs  his  shoulders  over  "  La 
Comedie  Humaine."  He  is  filled  with  pity  for  it.  **  It 
is  now  five  or  six  years  since  M.  de  Balzac,"  he  says, 
"  conceived  a  singular  way  of  escaping  from  the  sov- 
ereign jurisdiction  of  the  critics  ;  he  declared  haughtily, 
with  an  imperturbable  sang-froid,  that  his  novels 
could  not  finally  be  judged,  nor,  indeed,  at  all,  at  present, 
because  his  novels  were  not  distinct  works,  separate  one 
from  the  other,  rivals,  so  to  speak,  each  one  starting  from 


CRITICISM,  333 

an  individual  inspiration,  and  reaching  conclusions 
essentially  diverse ;  but  rather  were  they  fragments  of 
a  gigantic  monument,  indispensable  stones  of  a  colos- 
sal palace  in  which  he  desired  to  lodge  his  country. 
Moderately  irritated  by  this  injunction  on  the  part  of 
the  writer,  so  as  to  protect  from  attack  his  own  incom- 
petency, the  critic  contents  himself  with  shrugging  his 
shoulders  in  indulgent  pity."  See  this  man  of  genius, 
whose  ambition  it  is  to  build  a  monument,  and  who 
prays  the  critic  to  give  him  time  !  Such  pretenses,  can 
they  be  tolerated  ?     Folly  has  no  patience. 

But  this  is  only  the  beginning.  Chaudes-Aigues,  with 
a  fillip,  overthrows  **LaComedie  Humaine."  Balzac  is 
accused  of  lying  and  of  inability  ;  he  has  no  general  plan ; 
he  only  wishes  to  impose  upon  the  critic,  and  he  ex- 
hausts his  powers  in  meaningless  efforts.  Then  he 
goes  on  to  prove  that  his  novels,  taken  separately,  offer 
neither  originality,  nor  interest,  nor  talent — nothing, 
nothing  at  all,  absolute  emptiness. 

In  the  first  place,  Balzac  invented  nothing.  In  all  his 
works  there  are  but  two  types,  a  man  of  genius  mis- 
understood and  struggling,  a  woman  of  heart  devoted 
to  all  kinds  of  sacrifices.  "  Louis  Lambert  and  Mme. 
de  Vienmesnil,''  said  Chaudes-Aigues,  "to  continue  a 
very  just  comparison,  are  the  first  proofs  of  the  only 
two  portraits  which  he  has  drawn.  Unhappily  for 
M.  de  Balzac,  the  invention  of  these  two  portraits  can- 
not be  ascribed  to  him  ;  he  has  only  the  merit  of  being 
a  skillful  reproducer,  in  this  case.  Like  the  engraver 
reproducing  the  painter's  idea  on  wood  or  steel,  or  Hke 
the  pupil  guiding  the  timid  pencil  over  the  traces  left 
by  the  master's  brush,  he  has  copied  pictures  created 
by   other  brains   than   his   own."      And   further   on : 


334  CRITICISM. 

"  M.  de  Balzac  has  not  been  very  careful  in  hiding  his 
larcenies  when,  instead  of  principal  characters,  it  is  a 
question  of  secondary  ones  and  of  details.  In  order  to 
attack  him  only  on  a  ground  which  shall  be  favorable 
to  him,  we  will  quote,  in  support  of  our  assertions,  his 
two  most  popular  works — *  Eugenie  Grandet '  and  *  Le 
Lys  dans  la  Vallee  :  the  first  one  in  which  VAvare  and 
Melmoth,  a  little  affected  and  contracted,  it  is  true, 
are  constantly  before  the  author,  each  in  turn ;  the 
second  which,  in  the  general  dispositions  and  scenic 
effects,  is  made  up  of  the  shreds  and  patches  of  '  Le 
Volupte  ' !  Moliere  !  Mathurin !  Hoffman !  Sainte- 
Beuve  !  We  must  be  just.  M.  de  Balzac  goes  about 
it  in  earnest,  and  it  is  not  to  the  poor  that  he  betakes 
himself."  Balzac  pillaging  from  Sainte-Beuve — that  is 
the  last  straw,  as  we  say  to-day.  Besides,  the  accusa- 
tion of  plagiarizing  is  equally  in  the  order  of  things. 
Chaudes-Aigues  would  not  be  complete  if  he  did  not 
treat  Balzac  as  a  robber.  The  Chaudes-Aigueses  of 
to-day  continue  the  tradition. 

Now  let  us  pass  to  his  criticism  of  Balzac's  style. 
You  are  going  to  see  how  radically  ignorant  Balzac  is 
of  the  proper  use  of  language.  '*  M.  de  Balzac  is  a  per- 
fect stranger  to  the  most  common  notions  of  syntax ; 
there  is  not  in  the  art  of  writing  any  elementary  prin- 
ciple of  which  he  seems  to  have  even  a  vague  idea. 
According  to  his  pleasure  he  makes  passive  verbs 
active,  and  vice  versa  ;  or  else  he  ranges  in  the  category 
of  irregular  or  absolute  verbs  those  which  are  properly 
neuter.  Nearly  every  word  is  forced,  under  his  pen, 
into  impossible  connections.  With  an  audacity  and  an 
assurance  truly  fabulous  he  establishes  between  nouns 
of  which  he  knows  neither  the  precise  significance  nor 


CRITICISM.  335 

real  origin,  and  adjectives  of  whose  proper  force  he  is 
entirely  ignorant,  alliances  which  run  counter  at  one 
and  the  same  time  to  tradition,  vocabulary,  and  taste. 
As  to  pronouns,  relative  and  possessive,  and  adverbs, 
the  novelist  uses  them  as  detachments  of  light  cavalry 
which  are  deployed  to  hang  on  the  rear  of  a  flying  army 
so  as  to  increase  the  rout  and  the  carnage.  It  is  his 
reserve  corps,  intended  at  critical  moments  to  make  the 
massacre  of  the  language  more  complete."  Here  is 
irony  for  you.  Chaudes-Aigues  may  be  sure  of  one 
thing,  and  that  is  that  one  page  of  Balzac,  even  though 
incorrect,  has  more  force  in  it  than  a  whole  volume  of 
his  articles.  Our  language  has  been  in  a  transitional 
state  since  the  beginning  of  the  century,  brought  about 
by  our  literary  struggles,  and  it  is  a  singular  thing  to 
try  to  judge  Balzac's  style,  by  the  rules  of  La  Harpe. 
Chaudes-Aigues  simply  denies  the  modern  evolution 
in  the  matter  of  style,  this  great  enrichment  of  the  lan- 
guage, this  flood  of  new  ideas,  this  color,  and,  I  will  say, 
this  perfume  introduced  into  the  sentence.  No  doubt 
there  will  be  necessary  some  tribunal  to  regulate  all 
this  later.  But,  to  sneer  and  become  indignant  over  the 
movement  is  not  to  understand  it ;  it  is  only  a  proof  of 
cerebral  infirmity. 

Let  us  take  up  the  question  of  morality.  Here 
Chaudes-Aigues  becomes  superb.  It  seems  to  me  as 
if  I  heard  our  critics  and  biographers  of  to-day  thunder- 
ing against  naturalism.  It  is  abundantly  amusing.  I 
am  embarrassed  with  the  wealth  of  quotation.  "  One 
of  M.  de  Balzac's  pretensions  toward  which  we  should 
be  pitiless,"  he  says,  "  and  that  which  the  general  title 
of  his  works  emphatically  reveals,  is  to  understand  to 
the  bottom  the  morals  of  his  age  and  to  paint  them 


33^  CRITICISM. 

with  a  vigorous  truth.  What  are  the  morals  which 
M.  de  Balzac  paints?  Ignoble  and  disgusting  morals, 
with  avarice  and  lust  as  their  only  motives.  If  we  are 
to  believe  the  pretended  philosophical  historian,  money 
and  vice  are  the  ordinary  and  only  objects  for  which 
men  of  to-day  strive  ;  unnatural  desires,  depraved  tastes, 
infamous  inclinations  animate  the  France  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  exclusively,  this  daughter  of  Jean 
Jacques  and  Napoleon  !  Not  an  honorable  sentiment, 
not  an  honest  idea,  no  matter  in  what  direction  you 
turn  your  eyes.  France — for  it  is  the  portrait  of  France 
which  the  author  puts  before  us — is  peopled  with  black- 
guards covered  with  gold  lace,  bandits  more  or  less  dis- 
guised by  a  mask,  women  who  have  reached  the  last 
limits  of  corruption,  or  are  in  the  course  of  being 
corrupted.  A  new  Sodom  whose  iniquities  call  the  fire 
from  heaven.  That  is  to  say,  dungeons,  brothels, 
the  galleys  would  be  asylums  of  virtue,  of  probity  and 
innocence  compared  to  the  civilized  cities  of  M.  de 
Balzac."  Everything  is  put  just  as  you  see  it,  Sodom, 
Jean  Jacques,  and  Napoleon.  And  all  this  is  said  about 
our  works  to-day,  and  they  throw  Balzac  at  our  heads, 
saying  that  Balzac  at  least  allotted  a  certain  space  to 
virtue,  that  a  high  morality  is  always  to  be  found  in  his 
works !  The  truth  is  that  the  Chaudes-Aigueses  of  to- 
morrow will  throw  us  at  the  heads  of  the  twentieth 
century  novelists,  accusing  them  in  their  turn  of  a 
shameless  immorality. 

But  wait,  this  is  not  the  end.  Here  is  the  finest  of 
all ;  you  could  almost  imagine  that  you  heard  critics 
speaking  with  whom  you  are  well  acquainted ;  you 
could  imagine  you  were  reading  an  article  published 
yesterday  on  some  of  the  novels  whose  titles  you  know: 


CRITICISM.  337 

"  Oh,  yes  !  without  doubt  there  are  in  the  society  of  the 
present  infamies  and  disgraces,  fortunes  whose  sources 
are  unspeakable,  usurped  positions,  occupations  exer- 
cised in  a  base  manner,  dishonorable  industries,  self- 
ishness pushed  even  to  cowardice  and  to  villainy,  un- 
mentionable baseness.  But  to  say  that  there  is  only  this 
is  an  unpardonable  lie  !  To  please  one's  self  by  put- 
ting into  a  book  subjects  of  this  nature,  to  enlarge  upon 
them,  to  idealize  and  caress  them,  to  make  them  a  last- 
ing spectacle  for  the  crowd,  to  try  to  make  them  objects 
of  admiration  and  enthusiasm,  this  is  the  wrong  of  it 
all.  Happily  there  are  to-day  more  than  ever,  in  the 
hearts  of  a  certain  class  of  young  men  of  whom  M.  de 
Balzac  does  not  even  suspect  the  existence,  disinter- 
ested and  noble  instincts,  generous  passions,  sincere 
and  ardent  convictions,  which  will  not  follow  nor 
uncover  bad  examples  any  more  than  pernicious  les- 
sons. Under  this  manure  which  M.  de  Balzac  stirs  up 
with  too  amorous  hands  is  a  virginal  and  fertile  soil, 
developing  in  silence  at  this  very  moment  precious 
germs.  .  .  But  to  whom  are  we  speaking  ?  and  could 
the  author  of  '  La  Fille  aux  Yeux  d'Or '  be  expected 
to  understand  us  ?  All  that  we  have  to  say  of  M.  de 
Balzac  is  that  he  has  in  no  sense  unraveled  the  philo- 
sophical spirit  of  his  age  nor  of  its  serious  literature.  .  . 
Placed  during  his  lifetime  even  between  Mile.  Scudery, 
whose  sickly  fecundity  he  has,  and  the  Marquis  de 
Sade,  whose  work  he  continues  with  rare  success  in 
another  order  of  ideas,  he  will  be  able  to  see  shortly 
from  his  own  windows  the  corpse  of  his  reputation 
dragged  to  the  gibbet." 

Now  this  is  complete.     Here  is  the  Marquis  de  Sade. 
I  have  been  waiting  for  him.     He  ought  to  be  at  the 


33^  CRITICISM. 

feast.  You  cannot  imagine  what  use  criticism  makes 
of  the  Marquis  de  Sade.  He  is  the  finishing  touch 
of  Chaudes-Aigues'  past,  present,  and  future.  A  nov- 
eHst  cannot  risk  exposing  a  human  sore  without  their 
bespattering  him  with  this  absurd  comparison,  which 
proves  one  thing — the  complete  ignorance  of  those  who 
employ  it.  But  let  me  amuse  myself  with  the  extraor- 
dinary clairvoyance  of  the  prophet  Chaudes-Aigues. 
Where  are  the  youth  who  were  to  drag  Balzac  to  the 
gibbet  ?  To-day  the  sons  and  grandsons  of  Balzac  tri- 
umph. This  novelist  of  genius,  who  had  in  no  sense 
grasped  serious  literature,  nor  the  philosophical  spirit 
of  the  age,  has  left  behind  him  the  scientific  formula  of 
our  actual  literature.  If  thy  equals  at  the  present  hour, 
O  Chaudes-Aigues,  prophesy  with  the  same  certainty, 
those  whom  they  condemn  to  the  sewer  may  well 
rejoice,  for  there  surely  awaits  them  a  high  and  noble 
glory. 

Let  us  finish.  But  I  must  again  make  a  long  quota- 
tion. Chaudes-Aigues,  in  a  last  paragraph  of  two  pages, 
thinks  to  finish  Balzac  with  a  stunning  blow.  He 
blames  him  for  introducing  so  often  his  own  person- 
ality ;  he  speaks  of  his  pride ;  he  calls  him  squarely  a 
fool.     Read  and  meditate  on  these  pages  : 

"  We  would  willingly  have  witnessed,  from  the  posi- 
tion of  impassive  and  indifferent  spectators,  the  decline 
of  M.  de  Balzac,  a  false  meteor  about  to  plunge  back 
silently  into  the  pool  of  forbidding  octavos  whence 
he  came,  if  M.  de  Balzac,  in  proportion  as  he  declines, 
did  not  do  his  best  to  tire  the  public's  patience 
by  promenading  his  own  personality.  M.  de  Balzac, 
as  a  result  of  discovering  his  resemblance,  if  not  his 
superiority,  to  all  the  great  men  of  ancient  and  modern 


CRITICISM.  339 

times,  has  finally  reached  such  a  height  in  his  own 
estimation  that  it  would  show  incredible  modesty  if 
he  should  proclaim  himself,  as  they  assure  us  he  will,  as  a 
candidate  for  the  Academy.  To  consent  to  thus  share 
the  empire  of  letters  with  thirty-nine  rivals,  to  be  will- 
ing to  swap  a  throne  for  an  armchair  —  that  would 
be  indeed  an  abdication.  .  .  The  members  of  the 
Institute  will  not  give  place,  we  trust,  to  a  buffoon  of 
whom  the  public  is  tired.  .  .  When  M.  de  Balzac 
proclaims  himself,  by  aid  of  advertisements,  an  incom- 
parable author,  the  finest  of  modern  novelists,  the 
foremost  composer  of  masterpieces,  in  the  lump,  or 
one  by  one,  it  is  an  absurdity  that  recalls  Lafon- 
taine's  frog,  but  which  the  booksellers  are  at  perfect 
liberty,  on  the  whole,  to  give  to  an  author  so  as 
to  get  their  money.  When  M.  de  Balzac  sets  himself 
up  as  a  writer  beside  whom  Richardson,  Walter  Scott, 
and  others  are  small  potatoes,  this  also,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  can  be  tolerated  as  a  delicious  subject  for  a 
joke.  But  when  M.de  Balzac,  not  content  with  having 
put  his  name  before  the  public  by  means  of  preface 
and  paying  advertisement,  seizes  upon  all  occasions  to 
lavish  flattery  upon  himself,  and  trumps  up  such  occa- 
sions at  pleasure — when,  under  a  pretext  to-day  of 
clearing  up  a  question  qf  literary  rights,  to-morrow  of 
making  known  the  wrong  done  to  the  French  book- 
seller by  the  Belgian  pirated  books,  the  next  day  of 
refuting  an  opinion  passed  upon  him  in  a  critical  arti- 
cle, another  day  of  proposing  the  modification  of  the 
civil  or  penal  code — when,  in  short,  M.  de  Balzac,  inces- 
santly preoccupied  with  his  own  individual  importance, 
gives  expression  to  this  double  role  of  Marechal  of 
France   and   emperor,   which    he   plays   alternately — 


340  CRITICISM. 

this  is  a  thing  which  can  be  tolerated  no  longer,  this 
is  a  thing  which  is  no  longer  laughable,  for  this  is 
pride  pushed  to  the  border  of  idiocy.  To  oppose  the 
smallness  of  the  merit  to  the  extravagance  of  the  ambi- 
tion was,  in  such  a  case,  a  duty  which  philosophic 
criticism  could  not  dispense  with." 

My  ears  ring.  Is  it  Balzac  of  whom  they  speak,  or 
is  it  another  ?  Did  this  article  appear  thirty  years  ago, 
or  only  this  morning  ?     Was  it  by  Chaudes-Aigues,  or 

was  it  by ?    Put  a  name  here.     Poor,  great  Balzac, 

fallen  under  the  ferule  of  a  dunce  because  he  worked 
too  hard,  because  his  personality  overflowed  inevitably, 
because  his  days  were  rounded  out  with  the  faith  of  great 
workers.  Ah,  what  a  vengeance  is  his  to-day  !  But  he 
has  suffered,  and  he  is  no  longer  here. 

You  will  say  to  me  :  *'  Enough  of  this;  you  are  right; 
this  Chaudes-Aigues  is  an  idiot.  What  made  you  think 
of  such  a  strange  idea  as  digging  up  this  mass  of  folly  ? 
It  is  not  funny ;  it  is  tiresome  ;  it  is  beyond  all  reason. 
At  the  present  day  everybody  is  agreed  that  Balzac  is 
the  great  novelist  of  the  century.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
try  to  prove  it,  to  display  the  foolish  things  which  long 
forgotten  critics  said  on  their  own  account.  Give  us  a 
respite  from  your  Chaudes-Aigues." 

And  I  shall  reply :  "  Granted  that  Chaudes-Aigues  is 
an  idiot ;  that  the  quotations  which  I  have  borrowed 
from  him  have  become  silly  and  tiresome.  But  it  is 
worth  while  to  point  out  that  Chaudes-Aigues  was,  in 
his  time,  a  distinguished  critic,  listened  to  and  read  by 
a  public  whose  intelligence  he  spoiled,  and  who  thought 
as  he.  His  essay  is  written  correctly,  except  for  certain 
mistakes  and  much  nonsense.  He  surely  thought  he 
was  doing  a  work  of  justice  and  morality.     But  it  has 


CRITICISM.  341 

proved  that  thirty  years  were  sufficient  to  change  him 
into  a  buffoon  whom  you  cannot  read  without  amuse- 
ment. Well,  how  many  Chaudes-Aigueses  do  you 
think  we  could  number  in  our  own  times?  and  think 
with  what  bursts  of  laughter  our  grandsons  will  read  the 
articles  of  these  gentlemen.  This  makes  me  happy, 
that  is  all." 


JULES  JANIN  AND  BALZAC. 

LATELY  I  amused  myself  with  giving  some  extracts 
from  a  most  incredible  essay  which  the  now  for- 
gotten critic  Chaudes-Aigues  had  formerly  written 
against  our  great  Balzac.  To-day  I  shall  take  the  fur- 
ther pleasure  of  reproducing  certain  passages  from  an 
article  published  by  Jules  Janin  upon  the  author  of 
"  La  Comedie  Humaine  "  in  the  Revue  de  Paris  in  the 
number  for  July,  1839. 

Chaudes-Aigues  was  almost  an  unknown,  a  man  with- 
out much  authority  as  a  critic,  and  whose  imbecility  was 
of  no  great  consequence.  But  Jules  Janin — diable!  this 
is  getting  serious.  Remember  that  Jules  Janin  was 
solemnly  crowned  the  prince  of  critics,  that  for  forty 
years  the  world  bent  beneath  his  rod,  that  nothing  has 
equaled  his  celebrity,  unless  it  be  the  oblivion  into 
which  he  has  fallen  at  once  and  forever.  A  prolific 
novelist,  a  dramatic  critic  of  acknowledged  ability,  he 
seemed  big  enough  to  understand  Balzac.  Well,  you 
shall  hear. 

It  must  be  said  that  Balzac  had  just  handled  the  press 
roughly  in  his  novel  of  ''  Illusions  Perdues."  Janin 
thought  he  ought  to  take  up  the  gloves  for  journalism. 
In  those  days  one  was  astonished  to  find  that  a  novelist 
who  had  been  slaughtered  by  the  newspapers,  and 
dragged  in  the  mud  every  morning,  had  the  audacity 
to  be  dissatisfied  and  to  accuse  his  defamers  of  unfair- 
ness and  ignorance.     Balzac    did  not   mince   matters; 

342 


CRITICISM.  343 

in  the  Revue^  which  belonged  to  him,  he  squarely 
declared  that  the  newspapers  assumed  an  ''  ignoble " 
attitude  toward  him.  Moreover,  he  never  pardoned 
them.  These  are  things  which  we  have  far  too  much 
forgotten  nowadays,  when  we  try  to  crush  the  living 
under  the  remembrance  of  the  distinguished  dead.  Let 
us  add  that  Janin,  in  making  himself  the  defender  of 
the  press,  was  meanly  the  executor  of  the  bitterness  of 
La  Revue  de  Paris^  which  had  just  lost  its  famous  suit 
against  Balzac. 

But  let  us  come  to  the  quotations.  I  give  them  in 
the  order  in  which  they  present  themselves. 

In  the  first  place,  Janin  jokes  very  pleasantly.  He 
was  forced  to  read  the  *'  Illusions  Perdues,"  and  this  was 
a  frightful  punishment  for  him.  For  one  moment  he 
thought  to  escape  the  drudgery,  and  he  cried  out : 
"  Immediately  I  very  happily  returned  to  those  old 
books  which  have  at  once  a  middle,  a  beginning,  and 
an  end — noble  masterpieces,  the  contemplation  of  which 
makes  you  so  much  better.  On  the  contrary,  all  these 
modern  tortures,  written  at  haphazard,  without  any  plan, 
any  end,  as  if  one  were  drawing  on  paper  the  most  fan- 
tastic castles  in  Spain,  make  you  so  impatient  that  you 
can  hardly  contain  yourself."  This  is  his  declaration 
of  faith.  "  Without  any  plan,  any  end  "  is  very  good. 
This  recalls  Sainte-Beuve,  who  preferred  "  Le  Voyage 
autour  de  ma  Chambre  "  to  ''  La  Chartreuse  de  Parme." 

Again  :  ''  David  Sechard  considered  himself  very  lucky 
to  replace  his  father  at  any  price,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
make  his  friend  Lucien  foreman  of  a  printing  office,  at  a 
salary  of  fifty  francs  per  month.  I  forgot  to  tell  you  that 
Mme.  Chardon,  the  mother,  earned  thirty  sous  a  day 
caring  for  the  sick ;  her  daughter,  twenty  sous  a  day 


344  Criticism. 

working  for  a  washerwoman.  This  sound  of  money  and 
this  horrible  odor  of  copper  coin  will  often  come  up  in 
my  story;  but  whose  fault  is  it  but  M.  de  Balzac's,  who 
makes  the  destiny  of  his  heroes,  indeed  of  nearly  all 
his  heroes,  depend  upon  a  piece  of  fifty  centimes  ? " 
And  farther  on :  "  Of  the  2000  francs  which  he  had 
brought  to  Paris,  there  remained  to  him  not  more  than 
360  francs.  He  took  lodgings  in  the  Rue  de  Cluny, 
near  La  Sorbonne ;  he  paid  40  sous  for  a  cab ;  there 
remained  to  him  then  but  358  francs.  In  order  to  read 
M.  de  Balzac's  novels  with  benefit  you  must  at  least 
know  a  little  arithmetic  and  a  little  algebra ;  if  not, 
they  lose  a  great  deal  of  their  charm ;  also  please  don't 
forget  that  these  minute  details  are  exact,  and  that  I 
am  incapable  of  inventing  them." 

I  believe  that,  by  George !  He  is  intelligent — this 
good  Janin.  The  prince  of  critics  did  not  understand 
that  Balzac's  great  originality  consisted  in  giving  money 
its  terrible  modern  role  in  literature. 

But  the  most  amusing  reproach  which  Janin  makes 
against  him  is  that  he  repeats,  that  he  has  but  one 
theme.  This  is  too  droll  when  you  recall  the  fact  that 
the  aforesaid  Janin  made  over  for  forty  years  the  same 
article  in  the  front  page  of  the  D^bats.  Forty  years 
of  the  same  empty  prattle,  forty  years  of  useless  and 
flowery  criticism.  Is  it  not  abominable  to  come  and 
accuse  the  author  of  "  La  Com^die  Humaine"  of  uni- 
formity, he  who  has  created  a  whole  world  ? 

At  last  he  risks  it,  he  throws  himself  thoroughly  into 
the  reading  of  the  **  Illusions  Perdues";  and  just  see 
in  what  gallant  terms  :  "■  Again,  once  more,  it  must  be 
done ;  let  us  shut  our  eyes,  hold  our  breath,  incase  our 
legs  in  the  impenetrable  boots  of  men  in  sewers,  and 


CRITICISM.  345 

walk  at  our  ease  in  this  mud,  since  this  pleases  you." 
I  could  imagine  I  was  listening  to  a  critic  of  to-day- 
speaking  of  the  filth  of  naturalism. 

In  his  course  Janin  encounters  the  name  of  Walter 
Scott,  and,  once  he  is  started  off,  he  talks  about  him 
for  two  pages  in  his  fluid  style,  which  runs  like  tepid 
water.  Balzac,  who  felt  for  Walter  Scott  an  admiration 
which  it  is  difficult  to  understand  to-day,  having  had 
the  misfortune  to  say  that  all  the  heroines  of  the  Eng- 
lish novelist  resembled  each  other,  the  critic  cried  out 
with  indignation :  "  What  blasphemy !  And  how  can 
anyone  fail  to  recognize  the  value  of  these  master- 
pieces, which  all  Europe  knows  by  heart?  But  it  is 
precisely  because  he  has  put  woman  in  the  background 
in  his  stories,  because  he  has  surrounded  his  heroines 
with  the  sweetest  virtues,  because  their  feelings  are 
restrained,  because  their  love  is  pure,  because  they 
always  remain  quiet  and  reserved,  as  honest  girls 
should,  who  are  to  become  the  worthy  mothers  of 
families — this  is  why  Walter  Scott's  novels  have  been 
accepted  so  extensively."  Here  is  profound  criticism. 
Decidedly  the  prince  of  critics  had  not  a  brain  large 
enough  to  understand  Balzac. 

He  understood  him  so  little  that  he  compared  him  to 
and  gave  the  preference  to  Paul  de  Kock.  Besides,  this 
was  one  of  the  pleasantries  of  the  time  which  enraged 
Balzac.  Janin  perfidiously  railed  at  him  :  "  Thus,  by 
different  roads,  one  by  gross  gayety  and  an  exagger- 
ated roughness,  the  other  by  a  most  refined  feeling  and 
a  politeness  that  was  a  little  more  than  exquisite,  M. 
de  Kock  and  M.  de  Balzac  have  reached  exactly  the 
same  popularity,  the  same  favor,  and  the  same  number 
of  readers;  but  to  know   which    one  carries   the   dav 


34^  CRITICISM. 

over  the  other,  ask  that  question  of  the  great  capitals 
of  Europe.  London  will  choose  Paul  de  Kock;  St. 
Petersburg,  the  most  skillful  counterfeit  of  Paris,  will 
shout  for  M.  de  Balzac;  Paris  is  for  both  of  them; 
Paris  is  for  all  those  who  amuse  her;  she  will  never 
have  too  many  amusers."  To-day  Paris,  Europe,  and 
the  world  know  but  Balzac,  as  Paul  de  Kock  and  Jules 
Janin  himself  are  dead. 

Further  on  this  prince  of  critics  is  not  willing  to  give 
the  kingly  crown  to  Balzac  among  novelists.  He  reveals 
his  temperament  in  this.  I  quote  the  whole  page ;  it  is 
worth  the  trouble :  "  I  will  reply  to  you  that  M.  de  Bal- 
zac is  not  the  king  of  fnodern  novelists ;  the  king  of  mod- 
ern novelists  is  a  woman — one  of  those  grand  minds  full 
of  disquietude  which  seek  their  true  course — and  who, 
even  when  she  writes  her  most  beautiful  novels,  pro- 
duces on  me  the  effect  of  Apollo  guarding  the  flocks  of 
Admetus.  Coming  next,  sometimes  alongside  of,  and 
sometimes  behind  M.  de  Balzac,  sometimes  in  front  of 
him,  are  several  novelists  who,  like  him,  look  with  great 
contempt  upon  society  as  it  is  revealed  by  its  behavior 
— writers  of  great  audacity,  of  a  marvelous  fecundity. 
What  work  of  M.  de  Balzac's  has  been  more  filled  with 
movements  and  incidents  of  great  diversity  than  '  Les 
Memoiresdu  Diable'?  What  story  of  M.  de  Balzac's  is 
superior  to  '  La  Femme  de  Quarante  Ans'by  M.  de 
Bernard?  When  has  M.  de  Balzac  developed  irony  to 
a  finer  degree  than  Eugene  Sue  ?  Has  he  ever  written 
anything  which,  in  the  freshness  of  its  descriptions,  in 
the  whispering  and  springlike  grace  of  landscape,  can 
be  preferred  to  the  charming  fancies  of  M.  Alphonse 
Karr?  Let  us  not  forget,  in  a  higher  class,  M.  Alfred 
de  Vigny's  novel,    and  '  Notre   Dame  de  Paris,'  and 


CRITICISM.  347 

"  Volupte,"  which  is  a  book  standing  alone,  without 
counting  all  the  beautiful  little  stories  which  I  forget, 
all  filled  with  ecstasy,  imagination,  and  love.  .  ."  All 
this  has  become  very  droll  in  these  days.  This  prince 
of  critics  lacked  any  genuine  flavor. 

Would  you  like  to  hear  Balzac  treated  as  a  tainted 
naturalist  of  to-day?  "Because  the  thing  exists,  does 
that  mean  that  the  novel  and  the  comedy,  with  hook 
in  hand,  are  free  to  occupy  themselves  with  this  pan- 
demonium seething  under  this  pile  of  filth  ?  No,  no ; 
there  are  some  things  which  ought  not  to  be  seen,  and 
which  are  hardly  permissible  to  the  philosopher,  barely 
allowable  to  the  moralist,  and  scarcely  permitted  to  the 
Christian.  A  writer  is  not  a  ragpicker ;  a  book  cannot 
be  filled  up  like  a  basket."  There  is  a  phrase  which  has 
the  air  of  having  been  written  this  morning.  Oh  !  these 
gentlemen  do  not  put  themselves  to  any  expense  in  the 
matter  of  imagination.  The  same  phrases  have  been 
used  for  half  a  century.  They  have  not  overthrown 
Balzac ;  but  never  mind,  they  are  still  considered  good 
enough  to  try  to  crush  out  the  newcomers  with. 

Upon  the  whole,  as  I  have  said,  Jules  Janin  feigned 
to  believe  that  Balzac  attacked  all  the  leading  spirits 
of  journalism,  all  the  well-known  names:  Chateau- 
briand, Royer-Collard,  Guizot,  Armand  Carrel,  Ville- 
main,  Lamenais.  The  truth  was  that  Balzac  spoke  of 
the  shameful  way  of  cooking  up  articles  which  he  had 
witnessed,  the  side  scenes  of  the  press,  of  all  the  abuses 
to  which  the  rapid  success  of  newspapers  had  given 
birth.  In  this  connection  let  us  admire  the  following 
passage  :  "  When,  merely  since  1789,  all  the  principles 
upon  which  modem  society  rests  are  founded,  defended, 
and  saved  by  the  newspaper,  it  is  sad  to  see  your  noble 


34^  CRITICISM. 

and  beloved  profession  attacked,  even  as  regards  its 
shadows,  even  in  its  most  futile  and  unperceived  acces- 
sories. Attacked,  and  by  whom,  I  pray  you  ?  By  a  book 
without  style,  without  merit,  and  without  talent." 
Good  Heavens  !  is  it  of  "  Les  Illusions  Perdues  "  that 
this  prince  of  critics  speaks  ?  But  you  do  not  know 
your  own  domain  even,  you  old  meddler !  After  such 
a  judgment  they  should  have  seated  you  on  your 
crown  as  on  a  bottomless  chair. 

Wait  a  minute ;  it  is  not  finished.  There  is  a  stronger 
phrase  yet.  Here  it  is  :  "  Happily  this  book  belongs 
to  the  great  number  of  novels  which  we  do  not  regret 
not  having  read,  which  appear  to-day  to  disappear 
to-morrow  into  the  depths  of  a  great  oblivion.  Never, 
in  fact,  at  any  epoch  during  the  exercise  of  his  talent 
has  the  thought  of  M.  de  Balzac  been  more  scattered 
nor  his  invention  more  sluggish,  his  style  more  incor- 
rect. .  ."  This  is  enough  ;  let  us  stop  here,  for  we 
have  reached  the  height  of  the  ridiculous. 

Well !  prince,  I  think  it  is  you  who  disappeared  the 
next  day  into  the  depths  of  a  great  oblivion.  Nobody 
reads  your  books,  and  your  forty  years  of  criticism  have 
not  even  left  a  trace  in  our  literary  history.  As  to 
Balzac,  he  is  standing  on  his  feet,  he  grows  each  day 
greater.  He  belongs  to  the  mass  of  refreshing,  healthy 
reading  of  the  past  which  does  us  good.  One  breathes 
again  in  exhibiting  the  imbecility  of  criticism,  even 
when  it  is  crowned.  Consider  further  that  to-day  they 
have  not  found  one  whom  they  judge  worthy  to  be 
seated  on  the  throne.  If  a  man  makes  such  a  mess  as 
this  when  one  is  a  prince,  what  do  you  think  of  the 
judgments  pronounced  by  the  great  troop  of  ordinary 
critics  ? 


A  ROMAN  PRIZE  IN  LITERATURE. 

AVERY  strange  scheme  has  just  been  projected, 
that  of  founding  in  literature  a  Roman  prize. 
Fortunately  this  project  seems  to  have  no  chance  of 
being  realized,  and  it  would  be  useless  to  discuss  it  if  it 
were  not  a  symptom  of  the  ugly  disease  which  we  suffer 
from  in  France  of  being  protected  and  encouraged  by 
the  state. 

Truly  we  are  never  free  from  our  life  as  young  folks 
at  college.  The  arts  and  letters  continue  to  be  for  us 
a  series  of  compositions  like  Latin  themes  and  Greek 
translations,  and  it  is  necessary  that  some  master  should 
distribute  the  places,  should  be  always  on  hand  to  paste 
on  the  backs  of  the  scholars  the  numbers  in  their  order. 
If  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  distribution  of  prizes,  with 
their  laurel  crowns,  made  out  of  painted  paper,  should 
fall  short,  there  would  be  a  general  consternation. 

Urchins  of  eight  years  of  age  carry  a  tin  cross  on 
their  chest.  Later  their  names  are  inscribed  on  the 
honor  lists.  They  are  overwhelmed  with  good  marks. 
Later  still,  on  their  entry  into  life,  they  go  from  one  exam- 
ination to  another,  and  diplomas  fall  upon  them  as  thick 
as  autumn  leaves.  But  this  is  not  all.  Medals,  titles, 
and  crosses  made  of  all  kinds  of  metals  continue  to  rain 
upon  them.  They  are  ticketed,  given  certificates,  recom- 
mended. They  bear  on  every  part  of  their  body  the 
signature  of  the  administration,  declaring  in  due  form 
that  they  have  genius.     You  become  a  package  duly 

349 


35  o  CRITICISM. 

registered  for  glory.  What  childishness,  and  how  much 
more  healthy  it  is  to  be  alone  and  free,  with  your  breast 
bare  to  the  clear  bright  sunshine ! 

Now  there  are  some  writers  who  were  not  protected 
enough.  They  had  no  examinations,  except  that  the 
Academy  permitted  itself  to  distribute  to  some  ladies 
and  quiet  men  some  insignificant  prizes.  They  did  not 
feel  the  guardianship  of  the  state,  as  did  painters  and 
sculptors,  for  example,  who  depended  upon  the  adminis- 
tration absolutely.  From  that  springs  up  an  enormous 
jealousy.  We  long  for  chains  also.  Our  liberty  ham- 
pers us ;  we  do  not  know  how  to  write  chefs-d'oeuvre^ 
and  we  hold  out  our  hands  to  be  manacled.  The  artists 
are  too  greedy,  and  keep  all  the  fetters  for  themselves. 
We  will  begin  with  polemics,  we  will  hold  conferences 
if  necessary,  but  we  shall  exact  nothing  less  than  our 
corner  of  the  dungeon. 

Just  think  of  it !  The  painters  and  sculptors  have  a 
school  in  which  professors  teach  them  the  latest  method. 
They  pass  their  youth  in  the  midst  of  examinations. 
Then  a  jury  admits  them,  or  does  not  admit  them,  to 
the  public.  Each  year  they  compose,  and  the  first  ones 
have  medals  given  them.  When  the  medals  are 
exhausted  there  are  exceptional  compensations.  This 
is  at  least  an  enviable  career.  The  successful  students 
taste  all  manner  of  pleasures.  Talk  to  me  of  this  way 
of  understanding  the  life  of  an  artist,  and  then  under- 
stand how  colorless  a  writer's  life  seems  beside  it.  The 
poor  man  has  not  one  medal  to  cheer  him  up.  His 
house  is  left  desolate. 

At  this  moment  they  do  not  ask  for  medals ;  they 
would  be  satisfied  if  the  state  would  only  found  in  litera- 
ture a  Roman  prize.     This  prize  would  consist,  the 


CRITICISM.  351 

same  as  the  Roman  prize  in  painting,  of  a  certain 
income,  which  would  be  paid  for  four  years  to  the  win- 
ner. Naturally  it  would  be  awarded  as  the  result  of  an 
examination,  and  the  winner  would  be  required  to  fur- 
nish each  year  a  work  of  some  kind,  to  prove  that  he 
is  not  eating  the  administration's  bread  in  idleness. 
This  is  the  project  in  general.  It  remains  to  fix  upon 
the  style  of  the  composition.  Shall  it  be  a  novel,  an 
historical  study,  or  a  poem  ?  They  have  spoken,  I 
think,  of  a  comedy  or  a  drama  in  verse.  This  would 
restrain  the  Roman  literary  prize  in  a  very  singular 
manner,  for  it  would  thus  become  a  Roman  dramatic 
prize.  I  suspect  the  inventors  of  this  project  have 
some  youthful  tragedies  in  their  drawers.  But  truly  I 
think  they  have  not  yet  seen  the  comical  side  of  the 
invention. 

When  the  Prize  of  Rome  was  created,  the  idea  espe- 
cially was  to  furnish  young  artists  with  the  oppor- 
tunity of  making  a  stay  in  the  city,  which  was  then 
looked  upon  as  the  tabernacle  of  art.  The  journey  cost 
a  great  deal ;  on  the  other  side,  they  wished  to  assure 
to  the  winner  a  home,  relations,  artistic  supervision. 
Finally,  the  school  had  a  flag  and  intended  raising  sol- 
diers to  defend  it.  All  these  reasons  explain  its  foun- 
dation. 

But  in  letters,  who  could  make  verses  for  such  a 
prize  ?  It  could  never  enter  the  thoughts  of  anyone  to 
send  the  literary  prize  winners  to  any  city  whatever ; 
they  should  remain  in  Paris,  in  this  Paris  which  attracts 
all  minds.  I  could  thoroughly  understand  the  large 
cities  of  the  provinces  founding  a  Prize  of  Paris.  On 
the  other  side,  writers  have  no  heavy  expenses.  With 
^  quire  of  paper,  three  cents'  worth   of  ink,  and  one 


352  CRITICISM, 

penny's  worth  of  pens  you  can  write  a  chef-d'oeuvre. 
Finally  there  is  no  longer  a  state  literature  whose  flag 
anyone  wishes  to  defend.  The  two  cases  are  thus  com- 
pletely different,  and  I  cannot  understand  what  connec- 
tion anybody  can  see  between  them. 

The  only  reason  which  has  been  given  is  that  this 
Roman  prize  in  literature  will  relieve  great  despair  and 
discouragements.  And  they  mention  H^gesippe  Mo- 
reau,  and  all  the  poets  in  story  who  have  died  in  the 
hospital  from  poverty  and  suppressed  genius.  Now 
the  idea  of  this  undertaking  ought  to  be  clearly  set 
forth.  If  it  is  a  question  of  giving  an  income  to  a  poor 
young  writer,  it  would  be  necessary  to  make  such  a 
rule  that  only  poor  young  writers  could  compete.  The 
mayor  and  the  commissary  of  the  ward  might  deliver 
a  certificate  of  indigence,  which  must  be  handed  in  to 
the  secretary  with  the  other  papers.  In  truth,  the  suc- 
cessful candidates,  even  if  they  should  only  have  an 
income  of  twelve  hundred  francs  or  a  small  family 
allowance,  would  commit  a  very  villainous  action  if 
they  came  and,  by  reason  of  equal  merit,  disputed  the 
prize  with  a  man  who  was  dying  of  hunger.  The 
poverty  of  the  candidate  would  have  more  weight 
with  the  mass  of  the  jury  than  his  absolute  merit. 

If  you  set  aside  this  sentimental  reason,  no  other  seri- 
ous argument  can  be  quoted  in  favor  of  this  founda- 
tion. But  this  is  not  all,  because,  even  if  there  were  for 
the  Roman  prize  in  literature  the  same  arguments  which 
had  decided  the  Roman  prize  in  painting,  it  would  be 
wise,  before  going  into  a  second  venture,  to  ask  if  the 
first  had  produced  good  results. 

To-day  the  role  which  our  Roman  school  has  played 
in  the  art  of  the  century  can  be  clearly  exhibited.  This 


CRITICISM.  353 

role  has  been  absolutely  nil.  Certainly  a  great  artist 
who  went  to  Rome  would  return,  no  doubt,  with  his  gen- 
ius ;  only  Rome  is  so  little  necessary  to  our  painters  that 
the  greatest  among  them,  Eugene  Delacroix,  Courbet, 
Theodore  Rousseau,  Millet,  Corot,  and  our  whole  great 
school  of  landscape  painters  have  never  been  there. 
From  this  nursery,  which  should  be  so  fertile  in  masters, 
hardly  anything  has  come  out  but  mediocrities.  The 
great  movement  of  art  in  the  nineteenth  century  has 
developed  outside  of  and  apart  from  the  administra- 
tive hothouse. 

This  is  so  true,  the  Roman  school  is  to-day  so  use- 
less and  unstrung,  that  the  students  live  in  complete 
anarchy  as  regards  doctrines.  Every  year,  at  the  ex- 
hibition of  its  studies,  you  can  ascertain  the  confusion 
of  the  different  individualities.  The  Roman  school  has 
no  longer  even  its  aesthetic  stubbornness.  You  might 
as  well  send  the  prize-winners  to  Pontoise  ;  they  would 
be  nearer  modern  life.  Otherwise  their  stay  in  Italy  is 
a  very  pleasant  thing.  It  weakens  their  judgment  a 
little,  but  with  a  more  or  less  commonplace  painter  that 
does  not  make  very  much  difference.  As  to  the  dan- 
ger of  genius  going  astray  there,  it  would  always  with- 
stand any  such  tendency.  My  opinion  is,  then,  that 
our  Roman  school  is  neither  dangerous  nor  useful. 

Thus,  as  the  experiment  has  been  made,  what  would 
be  the  use  of  recommencing  it  in  literature  ?  It  is  well 
known  that  arts  and  letters  gain  nothing  by  being  pat- 
ronized and  coddled.  It  only  serves  to  keep  medi- 
ocrities alive.  A  writer  of  slender  ability  is  always 
troublesome  by  himself  ;  if  he  were  licensed,  he  would 
become  dangerous.  We  are  already  too  much  overrun 
by  the  makers  of  phrases  for  us  to  open  a  school  of 


354  CRITICISM. 

rhetoric.  The  day  on  which  we  found  the  Roman 
prize  in  Hterature  I  know  very  well  what  will  come  to 
pass ;  it  will  not  go  to  the  poor  ones,  it  will  not  go  to 
original  talent :  it  will  go  to  those  middling  and  flexible 
minds  who  know  how  to  pluck  all  the  flowers  along  the 
roadside.  What  is  the  use  of  encouraging  these  gentle- 
men, who  already  have  too  much  courage  ? 

I  have  a  theory  which  may  be  a  little  barbarous  on 
these  matters :  it  is  that  strength  is  everything  in  the 
battle  of  letters.  Misfortune  to  the  feeble  !  Those 
who  fall  are  wrong  to  fall,  and  so  much  the  worse  for 
them  if  they  are  crushed.  They  only  need  the  power 
to  stand  upright  on  their  feet.  Each  time  that  a 
debutant  is  stranded,  that  a  conqueror  of  the  day  be- 
fore is  vanquished,  I  conclude  that  he  bore  within  him 
the  germs  of  his  defeat.  The  victory  goes  to  those 
who  hold  the  reins  firmly,  and  that  is  just.  Talent 
should  be  strong ;  if  it  is  not  strong  it  is  not  talent ;  and 
it  is  essential  that  this  truth  should  be  made  manifest 
for  talent's  own  sake.  When  it  is  a  question  of  art 
things  must  be  said  out  squarely,  so  that  art  may  dis- 
cover in  man  the  passage  to  failure  or  to  success. 

I  find,  for  example,  that  they  exaggerate  the  cases  of 
Hegesippe  Moreau,  Chatterton,  and  others  in  an  unwar- 
ranted manner.  Hegesippe  Moreau  was  a  second-rate 
poet.  His  great  cleverness  was  in  dying  as  he  did.  If 
he  had  lived  no  one,  perhaps,  would  have  known  his 
name.  You  can  pity  the  poor  devils  whom  literary 
ambition  kills  in  the  garrets ;  but  it  is  silly  to  regret 
their  talent.  It  is  a  crime  to  support  the  pride  of  men 
of  no  ability.  The  writer  who  is  big  with  a  world 
always  brings  forth  that  world. 

I  spoke  in  the  commencement  of  this  contemptible 


CRITICISM.  355 

necessity  of  protection  which  we  have  in  France.  One 
hand  rests  on  titled  ladies,  the  other  on  the  constituted 
bodies ;  you  mount  thus,  little  by  little,  the  ladder  of 
a  pretty  success ;  you  start  with  diplomas  and  college 
prizes,  and  you  end  with  crosses  and  titles.  To  climb 
this  ladder  you  must  have  a  supple  backbone  and  know 
how  to  please  everybody  ;  a  bow  to  the  right,  a  bow  to 
the  left,  a  tirade  on  morality  every  now  and  then,  and, 
above  all,  a  selection  of  phrases  which  can  displease  no 
one. 

Ah,  but  contempt  is  far  preferable  !  To  despise  all 
these  conveniences,  to  feel  none  of  these  wants  spring- 
ing from  our  vanity,  this  is,  perhaps,  the  supreme  force 
in  our  trade  of  writer.  You  stand  alone  ;  you  rise,  but 
by  your  own  talent.  A  book  is  good,  and  you  write  it 
because  you  wish  to  write  it.  No  consideration  will 
determine  the  change  of  a  phrase.  Why  should  there 
be  a  change  when  you  have  given  up  all  compensations  ? 
The  greatest  pleasure  is  to  will  and  to  create.  Your 
spirit  goes  on  before  you  and  sees  the  completion  of 
your  desire,  and  this  is  the  only  route  which  leads  to 
masterpieces. 


THE    CONTEMPT   IN   WHICH    LITERATURE 
IS  HELD.* 

WHEN  I  was  struggling,  and  getting  my  articles 
accepted  after  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  I  can 
remember  the  emotion  which  the  appearance  of  a  new 
journal  caused  me.  There  was  one  door  more  which 
might  open ;  literature  was  perhaps  at  last  going 
to  show  a  little  streak  of  hospitality.  It  may  be  for 
this  reason,  but  I  still  have  the  refreshing  sense  of 
pleasure  when  I  see  Paris  speckled  with  placards.  It 
may  mean  bread  for  some  beginners. 

This  year  the  appearance  of  new  journals  coincided 
with  the  end  of  summer.  No  more  sitting  of  the  Cham- 
ber, hardly  any  politics,  and  not  an  incident  of  any 
note  far  or  near.     As  the  number  of  newspapers  was 

*  This  chapter  and  the  following  one  have  a  history.  They  were  the 
decisive  cause  of  my  breaking  with  Le  Voltaire^  the  editor  of  which, 
without  giving  me  any  warning,  took  it  into  his  head  to  enter  a  protest 
against  me,  declaring  that  I  was  wanting  in  respect  for  our  political  men 
and  affecting  to  believe  that  I  defended  obscenity.  This  was  done  so  as 
to  bring  about  my  resignation  abruptly  and  before  everybody.  A  pro- 
ceeding so  foreign  to  letters — did  it  come  from  a  man  who  served  as  an 
instrument,  with  more  or  less  consciousness,  to  the  literary  vermin  whose 
political  appetites  I  denounced  ?  Or  did  this  man  act  from  his  own  whim 
merely  for  the  sake  of  a  bold  stroke  so  foreign  to  our  world,  and  from  not 
Mkving  really  understood  what  I  wrote  in  his  newspaper  ?  Everything  is 
possible.  Here  are  my  articles  ;  you  can  judge  them  for  yourself.  It  is 
a  fine  role  to  play,  that  of  falling  for  literature.  I  have  only  one  wish, 
and  that  is  that  this  extraordinary  editor  should  live  through  me,  and  I 
bequeath  his  name  to  future  generations.     He  is  called  M.  Jules  I>afitte. 

356 


CRITICISM.  357 

growing  just  at  the  moment  when  politics  were  dull, 
they  had,  doubtless,  decided  to  give  some  space  to  litera- 
ture, for  you  cannot  disguise  the  fact  that  literature  has 
become  simply  a  thing  to  fill  up  with.  Between  two 
sittings  of  parliament  they  insert  an  article  on  biog- 
raphy in  justification.  As  to  any  variety,  any  literary 
studies  of  any  great  length,  they  remain  for  months  in 
the  pigeonholes.  The  newspapers  which  have  the  rep- 
utation of  being  the  most  hospitable  to  letters,  the 
Debats  and  the  Temps,  for  example,  have  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  eaten  up,  like  the  rest,  by  politics.  There 
are  but  five  or  six  obstinate  personalities  in  the  press 
to-day  who  persist  in  talking  literature  and  nothing  but 
literature,  in  the  midst  of  the  abominable  uproar  which 
the  different  parties  let  loose  around  them.  Later,  I 
think,  they  will  get  the  benefit  of  this  laudable  obsti- 
nacy. Just  now  I  do  not  know  whether  their  articles 
are  even  read.  They  are  granted  a  great  favor  in  being 
permitted  to  occupy  three  hundred  lines  of  the  news- 
paper every  week  which  could  be  employed  to  so  much 
better  advantage  in  discussing  the  revision  or  the 
scrutin  de  liste. 

Thus,  in  the  slackness  of  politics,  and  as  the  news- 
papers had  become  more  numerous,  I  dreamt  that 
they  would  turn  as  a  last  fesource  to  literature.  Not 
at  all.  Politics,  which  rushed  like  a  torrent,  simply  takes 
the  form  of  a  stagnant  sea ;  it  sleeps  and  rots  on  the 
spot,  that's  all.  If  twenty  new  papers  were  created 
politics  would  be  only  the  freer  to  stretch  and  overrun 
everything,  and  the  journals  would  empty  themselves 
of  all  but  advertisements  that  it  might  thin  itself  out 
so  that  it  could  fill  them  from  top  to  bottom  with  its 
slow  and  muddy  stream.     It  alone  is  sufficient.     Poli- 


35^  CRITICISM. 

tics  is  the  fatal  disease  of  our  age  of  troubles  and 
transition. 

I  was  talking  one  day  with  the  editor  of  a  new  journal. 
He  spoke  bitterly  of  his  circulation,  which,  he  said,  was 
far  from  being  satisfactory  to  him,  and  asked  me  if  I 
did  not  know  some  young  writers  of  talent.  I  named 
over  several,  but  he  shrugged  his  shoulders,  mur- 
muring: 

"  Oh,  a  litterateur  ...  I  wanted  a  young  man  who 
had  great  talent  and  who  occupied  himself  exclusively 
with  politics." 

"Ah,  indeed!"  I  ended  by  saying  to  him  impa- 
tiently ;  "  do  you  think  that  a  young  man  who  has  talent 
enough  to  be  a  writer  will  ever  consent  to  smear  himself 
with  mud  in  the  '  dirty  kitchen  '  of  your  politics  ?  " 

It  was  brutal,  but  it  was,  and  is  still,  the  exact  expres- 
sion of  my  thoughts.  I  admit  frankly  that  the  ambi- 
tious spirits  who  carve  out  for  themselves  a  high  posi- 
tion in  politics  are  oftentimes  powerful  and  original 
natures.  But  observe  that  they  make  their  triumphs 
especially  in  action,  and  that  you  find  often  at  the 
bottom  but  a  poor  writer.  Great  poets  and  prose 
writers  have  always  made  a  beggarly  appearance  in 
government  service.  If  we  put  to  one  side  the  extraor- 
dinary political  successes,  if  we  keep  to  the  crowd  of 
journalists  and  agitators,  to  the  troop  of  those  elected 
by  universal  suffrage,  from  the  simple  municipal  coun- 
cilors to  the  deputies,  we  shall  always  find  among  these 
hirelings  of  the  state  the  name  of  a  writer  or  an  artist 
who  has  failed  in  his  vocation.  This  fact  is  constantly 
observed  ;  politics  is  recruited  to-day  from  the  ragged 
edges  of  literature. 

How  sure  I  am  of  this  and  how  many  stories  I  could 


ckiTicisM.  359 

relate  to  prove  it.  This  man  started  out  with  a  volume 
of  verse,  samples  of  which  can  still  be  found  on  the  stalls 
of  second-hand  booksellers;  that  one  sent  his  MSS.  to 
editors*  offices  and  theater  managers  for  ten  years ; 
another  has  been  an  obscure  journalist  since  his  early- 
youth  without  obtaining  an  audience,  and,  exhausted 
by  his  exertions,  has  never  got  any  farther  than  beer 
saloon  celebrity ;  still  another  eaten  up  by  ambition, 
has  tried  everything  from  history  to  criticism,  from 
poetry  to  novels,  but  was  obliged  to  renounce  his  dreams 
one  by  one,  until  at  last  he  found  in  politics  a  mother 
compassionate  toward  all  mediocrities.  And  I  do  not 
speak  of  those  writers  who  were  full  of  intellect  one 
day,  who  on  the  next  awoke  so  knocked  up  that  they 
have  never  been  able  to  find  their  lost  talent  again. 
All  the  same,  these  are  excellent  recruits  for  politics, 
whose  right  hand  is  stretched  out  to  the  helpless  and 
her  left  hand  to  the  sick. 

This  is  the  hospital,  the  menagerie,  and  so  much  the 
worse  for  them  if  they  are  angry  at  me  for  calling  it 
thus,  for  I  really  know  of  no  word  strong  enough  to  use 
in  my  indignation.  Yes,  I  grow  indignant  at  such  a  dis- 
play of  wretched  and  foolish  ambitions.  Bring  me  a 
scrofulous  man,  an  idiot,  a  brain  misshapen,  and  you  will 
find  at  least  in  such  a  man  the  making  of  a  politician. 
I  know  among  them  men  that  I  would  not  have  for  serv- 
ants. You  need  neither  mind  nor  force  nor  origi- 
nality, only  a  "  pull,"  and  a  certain  nonentity  cast  of 
character.  When  you  have  failed  in  everything  and 
everywhere,  when  you  have  been  an  unsuccessful  lawyer, 
an  unsuccessful  journalist,  an  unsuccessful  man  from 
head  to  feet,  politics  will  take  you  in  hand  and  make 
you  a  minister  as  good  as  another,  reigning,  from  the 


360  CRITICISM. 

position  of  a  more  or  less  modest  and  amiable  upstart, 
over  the  French  intelligence.     These  are  the  facts. 

Mon  Dieu  !  the  facts  are  still  acceptable,  for  there 
are  strange  things  happening  daily  around  us.  The 
observer  becomes  accustomed  to  it,  and  contents  him- 
self with  smiling.  But  it  makes  me  sick  when  these 
men  pretend  to  despise  us  and  patronize  us.  We  are 
only  writers,  we  hardly  count ;  they  limit  our  share  in 
the  sunshine,  they  place  us  at  the  foot  of  the  table.  Ah  ! 
when  the  situations  are  finally  determined,  gentlemen, 
we  intend  to  pass  in  first,  to  have  the  whole  table  and  all 
the  sunshine.  Understand  that  one  page  written  by  a 
great  writer  is  more  important  for  humanity  than  a 
whole  year  of  the  agitation  of  your  ant-hill.  You  make 
history,  it  is  true,  but  we  make  it  with  you  and  beyond 
you  ;  for  it  is  through  us  that  it  remains.  Your  life  is 
commonly  passed  in  the  infinite  littleness  of  a  personal 
ambition,  without  the  nation,  as  a  whole,  being  able  to 
derive  anything  useful  and  practical  from  it,  while  our 
works,  by  the  mere  fact  of  their  existence,  aid  in  the 
civilization  of  the  world.  And  besides,  see  how 
quickly  you  die.  Look  into  a  history  of  the  last 
years  of  the  Restoration,  for  example,  and  ask  your- 
self where  so  many  political  battles  and  so  much  elo- 
quence have  disappeared  to ;  a  single  thing  survives 
to-day,  after  fifty  years  —  the  great  literary  evolu- 
tion of  the  epoch,  that  romanticism  whose  leaders 
have  remained  illustrious,  while  the  statesmen  have 
already  faded  from  memory.  Listen  to  us,  you  men 
of  little  stature,  who  are  making  such  a  noise:  it  is  we 
who  shall  live  and  who  shall  give  immortality. 

It  is  necessary  that  this  should  be  clearly  stated  ; 
literature  is  on  top  with   science  ;  then  comes  politics, 


CRITICISM.  361 

very  low  down  in  the  scale  of  human  productions.  In 
a  day  of  anger,  exasperated  by  the  ridiculous  ambitions 
and  odious  hubbub  which  surrounded  me,  I  wrote 
that  my  generation  would  end  by  regretting  the  great 
silence  of  the  Empire.  The  words  exceeded  my 
thought ;  I  am  willing  to  confess  it  to-day.  But  in 
truth  did  I  not  have  extenuating  circumstances  ?  The 
condition  of  tumult,  of  shock,  of  frightful  and  sense- 
less preoccupation  in  which  politics  has  made  us  live 
for  ten  years — is  it  not  an  intolerable  condition,  in 
which  the  mind  ends  by  becoming  suffocated?  Re- 
read our  history.  At  each  convulsion,  during  the 
Ligne,  during  the  Fronde,  during  the  French  Revo- 
lution, literature  was  struck  dead,  and  it  can  come  to 
life  again  only  a  long  time  afterward  and  after  a 
period  of  more  or  less  bewilderment  and  imbecility. 
Doubtless  social  evolutions  have  their  necessity  and 
their  logic.  We  must  submit  to  them.  Only  it  is  a 
veritable  disaster  when  they  are  prolonged.  To-day 
the  republic  is  founded  ;  it  is  trying  to  attain  the 
solidity  of  a  true  state  by  assuring  to  ,the  nation  the 
free  use  of  its  intelligence.  Its  duration,  its  glory, 
depend  on  this.  The  politicians  will  kill  it  by  their 
extravagance,  while  it  will  live  by  its  artists  and  its 
writers. 

I  speak  less  for  my  own  generation  than  for  the 
generation  which  is  to  follow  us.  We  others,  we 
have  made  our  mark  after  a  fashion,  amid  the  most 
vexatious  circumstances.  But  how  I  pity  the  begin- 
ners of  to-day.  Is  it  not  frightful,  this  multiplication 
of  newspapers,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  this  indif- 
ference, this  contempt  of  literature?  Not  a  paper 
which  gives  one  corner  to  a  serious  literary  question. 


3^2  CRITICISM. 

They  are  all  grinding  the  most  discordant  airs  on  the 
political  hand  organ.  And  the  airs  are  badly  composed  ; 
they  are  tiresome  and  they  nearly  kill  the  public  ;  for 
the  public,  it  would  seem,  hardly  listens.  I  should  be 
delighted  to  see  them  perish  through  that  very  thing 
in  which  they  sin  so  deeply,  to  see  them  die  of  a 
political  indigestion  brought  about  by  a  final  desertion 
on  the  part  of  several  hundred  readers,  of  whom  they 
dispute  the  possession  with  the  greediness  of  shop- 
keepers, dreaming  of  a  night  at  the  Elys^e.  You  are 
not  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  President  of 
the  Republic  underneath  every  newspaper  editor. 
After  Napoleon's  defeat  all  the  ambitious  ones  wanted 
to  be  lieutenants.  To-day,  after  Messrs.  Thiers,  Gr^vy, 
and  Gambetta,  cracks  begin  to  appear,  and  there  is  not 
an  unsuccessful  man  of  letters  or  arts  who  does  not 
dream  of  being  the  chief  magistrate  by  means  of  the 
bar  or  the  press. 

A  momentary  folly,  but  for  all  that  very  tumultuous 
and  trying.  All  this  will  pass  away  and  we  shall 
remain.  It  is  this  thought  that  gives  us  a  little  pride. 
Pride,  whatever  may  be  said  of  it,  is  healthful  in  these 
flat,  shrunken  times  in  which  we  live.  When  the 
editors  of  newspapers  demand  young  men  of  talent, 
and  when  they  shrug  their  shoulders  if  you  mention  a 
writer,  a  pure  man  of  letters  to  them,  it  is  right,  it  is 
sound  if  the  literary  men  rise  and  say :  *'  We  beg 
your  pardon ;  it  is  you  who  are  nothing,  and  we  who 
are  everything." 


OBSCENE  LITERATURE. 

WE  have  just  been  witnessing  a  very  singular  occur- 
rence. Paris  has  just  been  seized  with  a  fit  of 
virtue.  I  speak  of  a  fit  in  its  acute  sense :  one  of 
these  nice  crises  which  spread  out  to  full  view  all  the 
ignorance  and  foolishness  of  a  public.  When  the 
disease  shows  itself,  the  most  intelligent  are  attacked  ; 
they  do  not  all  die,  but  they  all  yield  to  the  contagion. 
It  is  a  sort  of  fashion  for  about  a  fortnight.  This  time 
the  press  has  made  the  startHng  discovery  of  what  it 
calls  in  its  indignation  obscene  literature. 

The  story  is  so  droll  that  I  feel  obliged  to  relate  it 
in  all  its  details.  A  newspaper  had  been  started,  Le 
Gil  Bias,  which  at  first  sold  very  badly.  Once  in 
a  while  I  questioned,  through  curiosity,  the  editors  of 
rival  sheets  as  to  the  chances  of  the  newcomer's  suc- 
cess, and  these  editors,  shrugging  their  shoulders  con- 
temptuously, declared  that  they  feared  nothing,  for  the 
paper  would  never  sell.  Then  all  at  once  I  saw  the 
editors'  noses  lengthening :  Gil  Bias  was  selling ;  it 
had  adopted  a  specialty  of  light  stories  which  gave  it 
a  certain  public.  I  mean,  if  you  like,  the  public  at  large 
— men  and,  above  all,  women  who  did  not  dislike  ques- 
tionable stories.  From  this  in  a  few  weeks  arose  this 
great  storm  of  virtuous  indignation  on  the  part  of  the 
press. 

I  do  not  wish  to  defend  Gil  Bias,  but  it  seems  to  me 
it  is  a  case  which  can  be  very  easily  analyzed.     Cer- 

363 


364  CRITICISM. 

tainly  it  was  not  founded  with  the  avowed  intention  of 
corrupting  the  nation.  It  simply  felt  its  way  with  the 
public  ;  new  newspapers  all  know  this  period  of  hesita- 
tion. Success  does  not  come  ;  everything  is  tried  until 
something  is  found  which  the  public  bites  at.  Well, 
Le  Gil  Bias,  having  ventured  among  other  things  a  few 
coarse  articles,  realized  that  the  public  bit  at  the  bait. 
From  that  time  it  did  not  sulk  at  its  success — it  gave 
to  its  readers  the  stew  that  was  to  their  taste. 

Ignoble  speculation,  school  of  perverted  tastes,  cry 
out  its  indignant  colleagues.  Mon  Dieu  !  I  would  like 
to  see  the  paper  that  would  refuse  its  subscribers  what 
they  clamored  for.  In  these  times  of  groveling  at 
the  feet  of  the  public,  is  not  the  press  a  great  toady  to 
the  tastes  of  its  readers  ?  In  politics,  in  literature,  in 
art,  where  is  the  paper  which  plants  itself  squarely  in 
the  center  of  the  road  and  resists  the  great  current  of 
nonsense  and  human  obscenity  ?  Since  all  the  follies, 
since  all  the  appetites  have  their  mediums  of  expres- 
sion, why  should  not  doubtful  stories  have  theirs  ? 
Among  its  colleagues  who  are  shocked  are  many  who 
have  worked  in  other  ways  for  the  demoralization  of 
the  public.  To  flatter  an  imbecile  aristocracy,  to 
flatter  the  robbers  of  the  stock  market,  to  flatter  the 
ambition  of  the  bourgeoisie  or  the  drunkenness  of  the 
people — this  is  more  disastrous  than  flattering  every- 
body's coarse  tastes. 

I  have  subscribed  to  Le  Gil  Bias  to  find  out  what 
there  was  to  it.  I  have  read  in  it  some  charming 
articles  :  for  example,  sketches  by  M.  Theodore  de  Bar- 
ville,  full  of  a  poetic  charm  ;  little  novelettes,  fine  and 
spirited  in  their  style,  by  M.  Armand  Silvestre ;  highly 
colored  studies  by  M.  Richepin.     Here  are  three  poets 


CRITICISM.  365 

whose  company  was  highly  honorable.  It  is  true  that 
the  rest  of  this  issue  was  of  a  lower  literary  order. 
There  were,  besides,  some  stories  in  it  which  were  posi- 
tively gross.  Not  that  I  blame  this  source  of  inspira- 
tion, for  I  should  have  to  condemn  on  such  a  ground 
Rabelais,  Lafontaine,  and  others  still  whom  I  esteem ; 
but  in  truth  these  stories  were  too  badly  written.  This 
is  my  whole  quarrel.  You  are  highly  blamable  when 
you  write  badly.  That  is  the  only  crime  which  I  can 
admit  in  literature.  I  do  not  see  where  they  can  put 
morality,  if  they  pretend  to  put  it  elsewhere.  A  well- 
made  phrase  is  a  good  action. 

I  was  then  in  the  middle  of  my  study  of  this  ques- 
tion, charmed  when  I  read  an  article  by  a  true  writer, 
and  absolutely  disgusted  when  I  came  across  the 
obscenity  of  a  casual  journalist  bungling  his  work.  In 
my  opinion  the  unworthy  begins  where  talent  ends. 
Only  one  thing  disgusts  me — stupidity.  But  my  age 
had  still  another  surprise  in  store  for  me.  I  suddenly 
learned  that  Le  Gil  Bias  is  my  work,  the  child  of  my 
womb.  It  is  not  Voltaire's  fault,  it  is  Zola's.  In  any 
case,  Gil  Bias  would  be  a  very  unnatural  child,  because 
he  eats  his  father  every  time  he  mentions  him.  I  have 
not  yet  found  a  line  about  myself,  that  is,  I  will  not 
say  kind,  but  that  is  even  polite.  Three  men,  at  least, 
could  be  counted  who  publicly  profess  to  detest  me. 
Admit,  then,  that  this  child  would  make  my  old  age 
wretched  if  I  had  the  least  certainty  of  being  its  father. 

But  no  ;  I  examine  myself.  I  question  my  heart, 
and  no  answering  throb  confirms  any  such  claim. 
Ashamed  of  my  sterility  I  must  surrender  the  child  to 
Boccaccio  and  to  Brantome.  I  do  not  feel  myself  at 
all  gay  or  sprightly ;    I  am  incapable  of  pleasing  the 


$66  CRITICISM. 

ladies ;  I  am  a  grumpy  tragedian,  a  man  dressed  in 
black,  whom  gallantry  does  not  tempt ;  and  they  must 
understand  the  laws  of  heredity  very  badly  to  try  to 
seat  on  the  knees  of  a  hypochondriac  like  myself  this 
gayly  be-ribboned  baby  who  is  already  playing  pranks 
with  his  nurse.  Are  you  not  astonished  at  the  extraor- 
dinary judgments  of  the  present  criticism  ?  I  speak  of 
the  current  criticism  which  fills  up  the  newspapers. 
It  does  not  put  a  single  writer  in  his  proper  place  ;  it 
does  not  study ;  it  does  not  classify ;  it  starts  from  a 
word,  from  a  ready-made  idea,  without  taking  into  con- 
sideration the  real  temperament,  the  true  work  of  a 
writer.  Gil  BlaSy  the  child  of  *'  L'Assommoir  "  and  of 
"Nana"  !  But,  great  God  !  it  is  Jeremiah  giving  birth 
to  Piron.  I  say  this  sotto  voce  for  fear  they  will  accuse 
me  of  including  myself  among  the  prophets. 

What  pretty  articles  my  friends  send  me.  I  have 
about  a  dozen  under  my  eyes.  In  them  I  am  accused 
of  corrupting  the  age.  One  especially  is  incredible  ;  it 
is  said  there  in  plain  words  that  I  invented  obscene  lit- 
erature. Alas,  no,  monsieur!  I  have  invented  nothing, 
and  I  have  been  bitterly  reproached  on  this  very 
account.  It  will  be  necessary,  however,  for  you  to  set- 
tle things  with  your  colleagues.  If  I  copy  all  the  world, 
if  I  am  only  a  falling  off  from  my  elders,  my  influence 
would  hardly  be  either  so  terrible  or  so  decisive.  Why 
do  you  not  also  say  that  I  invented  vice  ?  That  would 
put  me  at  one  bound  as  a  third  in  the  company  of 
Adam  and  Eve  in  the  Garden  of  Paradise.  It  would 
be  ridiculous  for  a  lad  who  prides  himself  upon  having 
finished  his  lessons  to  cross  out  with  one  stroke  of  the 
pen  so  many  strong  and  charming  works,  written  in  all 
the  languages  of  the  world,  and  to  pretend  to  begin 


CRITICISM.  367 

with  "  L'Assommoir "  and  "Nana "what  you  so  inno- 
cently call  obscene  literature. 

And  remark  that  these  accusations  are  not  made 
without  a  great  display  of  the  finest  sentiments  in  the 
world.  They  speak  especially  in  the  name  of  justice; 
they  protest  against  the  proceedings  through  love  of 
equality.  A  piece  of  nice  hypocrisy  which  does  not  take 
even  with  fools.  Since  they  prosecute  the  newspaper, 
why  not  prosecute  the  book  ?  Since  one  novelist  has 
been  brought  into  court,  why  has  not  such  another? 
Unquestionably  that  would  be  the  only  logical  way. 
But  it  is  very  weak,  this  logic  of  repression.  Ah,  mon- 
sieur !  since  you  are  in  favor  of  entire  liberty,  rejoice, 
then,  on  the  day  that  justice  has  a  caprice  in  the  way  of 
liberalism  ;  there  is,  at  least,  some  gain.  What  would 
you  say  of  a  man  whose  wife  beat  him  and  who  wanted 
to  be  beaten  every  evening  for  the  sake  of  being 
logical  ?  When  one  of  us  has  brought  about  a  triumph 
for  liberty  of  thought  by  escaping  from  the  judges, 
whom  you  declare  incompetent,  should  we  not  all 
rejoice?  I  do  not  speak  of  those  men  whom  the  quick 
success  of  a  colleague  irritates. 

In  short,  a  whole  group  of  writers  are  accused  of 
speculating  in  obscenity.  They  hoot  at  them,  they 
gather  up  handfuls  of  mud  from  the  gutters  to  throw  it 
in  their  faces ;  and  not  content  with  soiling  them,  they 
try  to  attack  their  talent,  swearing  that  their  books  are 
the  easiest  things  in  the  world  to  write,  that  all  you  need 
to  do  is  to  pile  up  horrors.  Well,  then,  try  this ;  it  will 
be  very  droll ! 

It  is  certain  that  there  are  speculators  everywhere. 
In  Gil  Bias  you  find  speculators  in  obscenity.  They 
are  journalists  with  no  talent  whatsoever,  who  concoct 


368  CRITICISM. 

a  coarse  story,  just  as  they  would  get  up  a  paper  upon 
the  reward  of  virtue,  with  tears  at  the  end  of  each 
phrase.  The  coarse  stories  are  accepted  ;  they  continue 
to  make  them.  To-morrow  they  will  go  so  far  as  to 
defend  the  Jesuits.  All  journalism,  all  the  utensils  of 
our  reporters,  I  repeat,  this  is  what  it  has  come  to,  with 
more  or  less  exactness.  In  the  novel  it  is  the  same 
thing.  Speculators  make  money  with  their  neighbor's 
success,  seeing  only  its  tumult  and  acquiring  only  its 
crudities,  and  making  it  revolting  through  their 
lack  of  talent.  This  has  always  been  and  always  will 
be. 

But  if  we  should  also  speak  of  speculators  in  virtue, 
do  you  think  the  subject  would  be  less  vast  or  the  traffic 
less  to  be  condemned  ?  How  many  novelists  and  dra- 
matic authors  I  know  who  boldly  work  virtue  just  as  they 
might  a  granite  quarry.  I  do  not  pry  into  their  private 
life ;  I  simply  say  that  these  jolly  fellows  have  a  fine 
time  with  their  morality,  from  which  they  only  mean 
to  make  an  income.  With  virtue,  in  the  first  place, 
there  is  no  necessity  for  any  great  talent ;  you  tap  your 
chest  before  great  ladies,  swearing  never  to  say  or  write 
anything  which  would  make  them  blush,  and  that  is 
sufficient.  Then  you  are  decorated,  you  are  certain  of 
the  Academy,  you  give  yourself  airs  as  a  pure  and 
patriotic  man.  And  have  we  not  heard  enough  bad 
patriotic  dramas,  and  do  they  not  force  enough  silly 
novels  upon  us  whose  fine  sentiments  burn  to  the  last 
pages,  like  Bengal  lights  ?  Is  all  this  convincing  ?  I 
suppose  not ;  it  would  be  too  simple.  Pure  trickery — 
shrewd  men,  born  in  the  school  of  hypocrisy,  and  who 
have  perceived  that  there  are  still  more  solid  profits  for 
working  in  virtue  than  in  vice. 


CRITICISM.  369 

Now  between  those  who  make  it  a  specialty  not  to 
make  the  ladies  blush  and  those  who  make  their  living 
by  causing  them  to  blush,  there  are  true  artists,  writers 
bred  to  the  occupation,  who  do  not  ask  for  one  second 
whether  the  ladies  will  blush  or  not.  They  have  a  love 
for  language  and  a  passion  for  truth.  When  they  work 
it  is  for  a  human  end,  superior  to  the  fashions  and  dis- 
putes of  these  dabblers.  They  do  not  write  for  a  cer- 
tain class  ;  their  ambition  is  to  write  for  the  ages.  The 
proprieties,  the  sentiments  produced  by  education,  the 
welfare  of  young  girls  and  wavering  women,  police 
regulations,  and  the  moraHty  patented  by  amiable 
natures,  disappear,  and  do  not  count.  They  go  straight 
for  the  truth,  for  the  masterpiece,  in  spite  of  everything, 
over  everything,  without  worrying  about  the  scandal 
caused  by  their  audacities.  The  fools  who  accuse  them 
of  cunning  calculation  fail  to  understand  that  their 
only  object  is  genius  and  glory.  And  when  they  have 
built  their  monument  the  gaping  crowd  accepts  them 
in  all  their  superb  nudity,  understanding  them  at 
last. 

I  do  not  urge  morality  on  anyone ;  but  I  wish  a  great 
deal  of  talent  to  my  adversaries,  which  would  certainly 
be  more  agreeable  for  us.  If  they  had  talents  that 
would  calm  them  down,  and  they  would  ask  less  of  virtue. 
In  any  case,  they  may  be  sure  that  the  year  1880  is  not 
more  vicious  than  any  other ;  that  the  really  obscene 
Hterature  does  not  spread  itself  any  more  than  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  for  example,  and  that  years  may 
roll  by  before  Le  Gil  Bias  advances  perceptibly  the 
rottenness  of  our  society.  All  this  skirmish  is  a  bit  of 
ridiculous  prudishness,  which  makes  me  anxious  about 
the  fate  of  our  famous  French  spirit.     Is  it,  then,  seri- 


370  CRITICISM. 

ously  ill?  Are  we  to  see  Rivarol  turn  into  Gran- 
dison  ?  It  is  Protestantism  which  is  overrunning  us. 
They  put  iron  bars  on  their  closets ;  they  create  con- 
cealed refuges  for  monstrous  passions,  while  our  fathers 
innocently  exhibited  theirs  in  broad  daylight. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REPUB- 
LIC IN  LITERATURE. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REPUB- 
LIC IN  LITERATURE. 

I. 

(HAVE  no  attachment  to  the  political  world,  and  I 
expect  neither  place  nor  pension  nor  recompense 
of  any  kind  from  the  government.  This  is  not  pride ; 
it  is,  at  the  outset  of  this  study,  a  necessary  statement. 
I  am  alone  and  free ;  I  have  worked,  I  work  still ;  my 
bread  comes  from  that. 

On  the  other  side,  I  must  establish  a  second  point. 
I  am  a  republican  of  former  days — I  mean  to  say  that 
I  defended  republican  ideas  in  my  books  and  in  the 
newspapers  while  the  second  empire  was  still  in  exist- 
ence. I  could  have  had  my  share  of  the  spoils,  had  I 
had  the  least  political  ambition. 

My  position  is  thus  clearly  defined.  I  am  a  repub- 
Hcan  who  does  not  live  by  the  republic.  The  idea  has 
occurred  to  me  that  the  situation  is  an  excellent  one  in 
which  to  say  out  aloud  what  I  think.  I  know  why  many 
hesitate  to  speak.  One  is  expecting  a  cross  ;  another  is 
anxious  about  the  place  which  he  occupies  in  the  admin- 
istration ;  a  third  hopes  for  advancement ;  a  fourth 
expects  to  become  Attorney-general,  then  deputy,  then 
minister,  then — who  knows  ? — President  of  the  Repub- 
lic. The  necessity  of  daily  bread,  the  longing  for  honors 
are  terrible  ties,  which  bind  down  the  most  simple  lib- 


374     REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE, 

erties.  As  soon  as  you  have  a  desire  or  an  ambition 
you  belong  to  the  first  comer.  If  you  judge  certain 
poHtical  characters  too  frankly  you  close  all  doors  in 
your  face  ;  if  you  dare  to  tell  the  truth  on  such  a  ques- 
tion you  turn  your  back  on  some  powerful  party.  But 
be  ambitious  for  nothing,  have  need  of  no  one  to  enable 
you  to  live,  and  all  at  once  the  shackles  fall  and  you 
walk  freely,  as  you  please,  to  the  right  or  to  the  left, 
with  the  calm  joy  of  your  regained  individuality. 
Ah,  this  is  true  happiness :  to  live  in  your  own  corner, 
on  the  fruits  of  your  little  field,  where  you  labor ;  not 
to  depend  upon  your  neighbor;  and  to  speak  out  aloud 
in  the  open  air  without  being  afraid  that  the  wind  will 
carry  away  and  sow  your  words. 

In  political  parties  there  is  what  is  called  discipline. 
This  is  a  powerful  force,  but  an  ugly  thing,  for  all  that. 
In  letters,  happily,  discipline  cannot  exist,  especially  in 
our  time  of  individual  production.  If  it  is  essential  for 
a  politician  to  group  around  him  a  majority  upon  whom 
he  depends  for  support  and  without  whom  he  would  not 
exist,  the  writer,  on  the  other  hand,  lives  for  himself 
outside  of  the  public.  His  books  may  not  sell,  but 
they  exist,  and  they  will  one  day  have  the  success  which 
is  due  them.  This  is  why  the  writer,  whose  conditions 
of  living  are  not  subjected  to  discipline,  is  particularly 
well  placed  to  judge  the  politician.  He  stands  superior 
to  what  actually  exists ;  he  does  not  speak  under  the 
pressure  of  certain  facts,  nor  to  bring  about  certain 
results  ;  he  is  free,  in  a  word,  to  stand  alone  with  his  own 
thought,  because  he  does  not  form  part  of  a  group,  and 
can  say  everything  without  upsetting  his  life  or  risking 
his  fortune. 

I  would  never  have  ventured  into  this  mess  we  call 


REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      375 

politics,  had  I  not  wanted  to  study  what  is  in  my 
opinion  a  very  grave  question.  This  question  is  to  find 
out  whether  the  republic  and  literature  will  live  happily 
or  unhappily  together.  I  mean  our  contemporary 
literature,  this  large  evolution,  naturalistic  or  positivist, 
as  you  will,  which  was  started  with  Balzac.  For  a  long 
time  I  have  hesitated,  because  the  ground  seemed 
burning.  Then  for  eight  years  the  tumult  has  been  so 
deafening,  the  complications  which  presented  them- 
selves so  rapid,  that  it  was  difficult  for  a  studious  man 
to  risk  a  serious  inquiry,  and,  above  all,  to  conclude 
wisely.  But  to-day,  though  the  noise  continues,  the 
period  of  incubation  has  ceased,  the  republic  exists  in 
fact.  It  is  in  working  order,  and  you  can  judge  it  by  its 
acts.  The  hour  has  come,  then,  to  place  the  republic 
and  literature  face  to  face ;  to  see  what  the  latter  ought 
to  expect  from  the  former;  to  examine  whether  we 
analyzers,  anatomists,  collectors  of  human  data,  savants 
who  admit  only  the  authority  of  facts ;  whether  we  are 
to  find  in  the  republicans  of  the  present  time  friends 
or  enemies.  The  solution  of  this  question  is  one  of 
extreme  gravity.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  existence  of 
the  republic  itself  depends  upon  it.  The  republic  will 
live  or  the  republic  will  not  live  according  as  it  shall 
a'ccept  or  reject  our  method.  The  republic  will  be 
naturalistic  or  it  will  not  be. 

I  am  going  then  to  study  the  political  situation  in  its 
connection  with  literature.  This  will  of  necessity  lead 
me  more  than  I  could  wish  to  judge  the  men  who 
govern  us.  But,  I  repeat,  my  intention  is  not  to  pro- 
nounce on  the  destinies  of  France  or  to  add  my  opinion 
to  the  confusion  of  other  opinions.  I  start  from  this 
point,  that  the  republic  exists,  and  I  simply  wish,  as  a 


376     REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

writer,  to   examine   how   the    repubHc    behaves   with 
regard  to  writers. 

I  must  first  study  the  way  in  which  the  republic  was 
founded  in  France.  Nothing  could  be  more  character- 
istic. Without  entering  into  the  history,  so  complicated 
and  troubled,  of  the  last  eight  years,  we  can  easily  run 
over  the  principal  outlines.  First,  there  is  the  crum- 
bling of  the  empire  brought  about  by  the  rottenness 
and  imbecile  arrangement  of  the  framework  which 
held  up  the  government.  Picture  to  yourself  purple 
and  gold  decorations  held  up  by  frail,  badly  planted, 
worm-eaten  pillars  which  one  shock  would  reduce  to 
powder;  the  war  of  1870  was  this  shock,  and  conse- 
quently the  empire  was  crushed  to  the  earth  at  the 
height  of  its  pomp.  After  our  disasters  came  Bordeaux 
and  the  attempt  of  the  loyalists.  I  was  there.  I  saw 
the  arrival  of  that  majority  who  shrugged  their 
shoulders  when  the  republic  was  mentioned.  They 
seemed  strong,  all-powerful ;  they  thought  it  was  but 
necessary  to  have  a  vote  cast  in  order  to  re-establish 
the  monarchy.  They  also  accepted  M.  Thiers'  presi- 
dency »vithout  any  uneasiness,  certain  of  remaining 
masters  of  France.  However,  on  the  next  day  the 
classification  of  the  parties  was  made.  If  the  republic- 
ans were  in  the  minority  the  monarchists  were  divided 
among  themselves.  When  the  details  of  the  votes 
came  in  there  were  legitimists,  Orleanists,  imperial- 
ists, and  neither  one  of  these  parties  remained  in  the 
majority  while  it  stood  by  itself.  From  this  arose  a 
radical  weakness  which  could  settle  nothing.  Later 
came  the  long  intrigues  and  parliamentary  struggles  at 
Versailles.  M.  Thiers  had  said  with  his  business  tact 
that   France  would  finally  belong  to  the  wisest.     At 


REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      377 

bottom  he  already  foresaw  the  final  triumph  of  the 
republic ;  he  realized  that  the  three  pretenders  would 
destroy  one  another.  The  drama  of  the  Commune, 
and  the  violent  repression  which  had  followed  it,  served 
to  consolidate  the  republican  government  instead  of 
overwhelming  it.  A  much  graver  danger  menaced  it, 
however :  there  was  a  question  of  reconciliation 
between  the  two  representatives  of  the  House  of 
France  ;  the  fusion  of  the  legitimists  and  the  Orleanists 
was  on  the  point  of  being  brought  about.  Finally 
comes  the  crisis  of  the  24th  of  May,  the  overthrow  of 
M.  Thiers,  the  triumph  of  the  monarchists.  For  one 
instant  the  republic  seemed  lost.  Henry  V.  was  about 
to  re-enter  Paris ;  the  state  carriages  were  already 
ordered.  Then  at  the  moment  of  voting  there  was  a 
supreme  split  on  the  part  of  the  royalists  on  the 
question  of  the  white  flag.  The  republic  carried  the 
day  on  the  vote. 

Certainly  this  was  not  yet  a  decisive  vote.  But  you 
could  easily  see  that  the  monarchy  was  condemned,  for 
each  day  it  went  a  little  further  in  accomplishing  its 
own  destruction.  Then,  under  the  presidency  of  Mare- 
chal  MacMahon,  was  seen  this  singular  spectacle  of  a 
monarchial  majority,  whose  members  devoured  each 
other,  and  which  worked  in  spite  of  itself  toward  the 
foundation  of  a  republic.  Its  violent  attacks,  its  stupid 
plots,  its  most  clever  and  strongest  plans,  all  tended  to 
make  more  solid  the  government  which  it  wished  to 
destroy.  The  explanation  of  this  phenomenon  is  very 
simple.  A  great  republican  sentiment  had  declared 
itself  throughout  the  country,  logically,  because  the  re- 
publican party  alone  seemed  reasonable  and  possible. 
While  the  royalist  majority  in  its  weakness  was  exciting 


378     REP  UBLIC '  S  I  NFL  UENCE  IN  LI  TERA  TURE. 

a  useless  agitation  to  re-establish  the  monarchy,  it  ren- 
dered itself  more  and  more  unpopular,  and  the  entire 
country  rose  and  chased  it  from  parliament.  Hence  the 
continuous  work  of  elections  replacing  every  monarchist 
by  a  republican  ;  then  the  legislative  elections  of  the  14th 
of  October,  and  the  senatorial  elections  of  the  5th  of 
January,  which,  after  the  desperate  adventure  of  the  i6th 
of  May,  finally  made  the  republic  a  regular  government, 
working  like  all  established  governments.  It  must  be 
said  that  the  Left  of  the  assembly  had  retained  and  put 
into  practice  M.  Thiers'  words :  "  France  will  belong 
to  the  wisest."  Without  doubt  a  minority  of  the  ex- 
treme Left  pushed  toward  extreme  measures ;  but  M. 
Gambetta,  who  was  the  undisputed  chief  of  the  party, 
had  put  forth  the  word  "  opportunism"  to  characterize 
how  greatly  the  situation  demanded  patience,  clever- 
ness, and  wisdom.  If  M.  Grevy  is  to-day  President,  if 
the  republicans  are  to-day  masters  in  both  Chambers, 
it  is  because  the  republicans  allowed  the  new  evolu- 
tion to  work  its  way  with  the  nation  without  trying  to 
hasten  the  denouement. 

These  are  the  facts  briefly  stated.  There  is  no  neces- 
sity for  me  to  enter  into  details  ;  I  simply  wish  to  reach 
the  conclusion  that  the  republic,  in  order  to  exist,  had 
to  be  the  logical  result  of  certain  facts,  and  not  the 
arbitrary  formula  of  a  political  school.  In  the  eyes  of 
many  republicans  the  republic  exists  by  divine  right ; 
one  government  only  is  legitimate,  the  government  of 
all ;  there  is  but  one  sovereign  possible — the  people. 
This  is  my  opinion  also.  But  here  we  are  in  pure 
abstractions.  A  mathematician  can  alone  reason  thus, 
because  numbers  have  no  will.  Think  of  attempting 
to  apply  this  theoretical    formula  of  a  republic  to  a 


REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      379 

people — everything  is  at  once  put  out  of  order.  This  is 
because  you  then  introduce  a  new  element,  that  terrible 
human  element  which  is  not  obedient  like  numbers, 
and  which  is  full  of  somersaults  and  whims.  You  can- 
not make  of  a  people  an  equation.  Look  at  France 
in  '89.  Behind  her  were  centuries  of  monarchy ;  cus- 
toms, usages,  a  way  of  thinking,  a  manner  of  living 
which  constituted  what  we  call  French  society.  The 
race,  the  surroundings,  the  institutions  work  toward 
the  slow  formation  of  a  people,  give  it  its  genius, 
stamp  it  with  an  impress  which  remains  its  own. 
Ah,  well !  it  was  no  use  to  wish  to  violently  transform 
France  in  '89 ;  she  became  once  more  a  monarchy,  after 
one  of  the  most  terrible  shocks  which  had  ever  over- 
turned a  state.  Without  doubt  the  old  world  was 
not  able  to  resurrect  itself.  A  new  century  opened  out ; 
the  gains  of  freedom  were  considerable.  But  the  em- 
pire was  about  to  bend  all  heads,  and  the  revenge  of 
the  Restoration  was  bound  to  follow.  It  was  simply 
that  the  human  element,  petrified  for  so  long  a  time 
by  centuries  of  monarchial  government,  could  not  adapt 
itself  to  the  republican  change,  notwithstanding  the 
violence  of  the  revolutionary  pressure.  The  fanatics, 
the  sectarians,  all  those  carried  away  by  the  exaltation 
of  a  faith  and  in  a  hurry  to  enjoy  the  ideal  state  of 
which  they  dreamed,  knew  well  what  they  were  doing 
when  they  clamored  for  one  hundred  thousand  heads, 
and  when  they  wished  to  establish  a  reign  of  terror. 
They  felt  the  necessity  of  brutally  subduing  the  human 
element ;  of  crushing  in  man  what  the  past  had  deposited 
there  ;  of  purging  man,  by  bleeding  him,  of  everything 
which  race  surroundings  and  institutions  had  put  in  his 
blood.     Vain  hope,  nevertheless.     There  is  no  example 


380      REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

of  a  nation  thus  transformed  in  an  instant.  Blood 
flowed  from  our  scaffolds,  and  out  of  the  red  puddles 
Napoleon  is  seen  to  rise,  who  came,  in  his  hour,  to 
arrest  the  revolutionary  movement  and  perform  his 
work.  Two  other  revolutions  were  produced,  still  with- 
out being  able  to  found  the  republic  ;  one  ended  in  the 
monarchy  of  July,  the  other  in  the  second  empire. 
For  all  this  there  is  only  one  explanation,  and  that 
would  be  easy  to  establish  by  history ;  the  social  and 
historical  facts  did  not  tend  toward  the  republic ;  the 
human  element  in  France  did  not  as  yet  adapt  itself 
to  republican  rule.  And  look  at  the  actual  facts  ;  that 
which  terror  was  not  able  to  effect,  the  slow  evolution 
of  minds  is  in  the  way  of  realizing  to-day.  Suppose  that 
the  frightful  shock  given  by  the  Revolution  to  the  old 
French  society  was  necessary  in  order  to  plow  up  the 
field  in  which  the  new  society  was  to  grow,  yet  what 
long  cultivation  was  needed  to  ripen  this  society.  All 
our  history  for  the  last  eighty  years  is  here  included. 
We  see  the  discredit  of  dynasties  increase  at  each 
attempt  at  restoration  ;  there  is  the  elder  branch  which 
breaks,  there  is  the  younger  branch  which  can  bear  no 
flowers,  there  is  the  empire  which  is  overthrown  by  a 
second  invasion.  During  this  time  the  people  made  a 
study  of  liberty ;  a  slow  and  steady  growth  pushes  the 
country  toward  the  republican  rule  ;  and,  as  always 
happens  when  a  historical  force  sets  the  nation  in 
motion,  the  smallest  incidents,  even  those  which  seem 
as  though  they  were  going  to  arrest  the  onward  march 
of  the  nation,  soon  precipitate  it  forward  with  a  much 
greater  impetuosity.  In  a  word,  when  the  facts 
demanded  the  republic,  the  republic  was  founded. 
There  is  what  I  wished   to  clearly  establish  at  the 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      381 

commencement  of  this  essay.  In  all  political  problems 
there  were  two  elements :  the  formula  and  the  man. 
In  my  opinion,  the  republican  formula  is  the  only 
scientific  one,  that  in  which  all  nations  must  of  necessity 
end.  If  men  were  mere  abstractions,  soldiers  of  lead,  or 
quills,  which  one  could  arrange  to  his  liking,  nothing 
would  be  easier  than  to  transform  in  an  instant  a  mon- 
archy into  a  repubHc.  But  as  soon  as  men  come  into 
play  they  upset  the  formula ;  they  complicate  the 
question  terribly  by  the  chaos  of  ideas,  of  wills,  of 
ambitions,  and  of  follies  which  they  bring  with  them. 
From  this  politics  is  born  ;  the  least  evolution  demands 
sometimes  hundreds  of  years  for  its  accomplishment  in 
the  midst  of  incessant  struggles.  Happily  changes  go 
on,  some  gain  is  accomplished,  the  formula  is  realized 
according  to  certain  laws.  Nothing  would  be  more  in- 
teresting than  to  study  this  play  of  the  human  material 
adapting  itself  to  a  new  political  and  social  formula  by 
taking  up  the  history  of  French  society  toward  the 
middle  of  the  last  century.  There  would  be  in  that  a 
very  great  labor.  I  have  contented  myself  with  point- 
ing out  rapidly  how,  since  the  Revolution,  we  have  been 
carried  toward  a  republic,  and  how  in  these  last  years  a 
republic  has  been  founded  by  force  of  facts  in  the  midst 
of  obstacles  which  seemed  at  every  hour  about  to  bar- 
ricade the  route.  Now  it  remains  for  me  to  study  the 
different  groups  in  the  republican  party.  Then,  know- 
ing the  make-up  of  our  actual  republic,  I  can  study 
what  connection  it  has  with  contemporary  literature. 

Of  course  I  should  soon  lose  myself  if  I  tried  to 
classify  all  the  shades  of  the  republican  party.  I  must 
confine  myself  to  three  or  four  characteristic  types. 
Naturally  I  choose  the  influential  groups.     Besides,  I 


382     REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

am  not  writing  a  polemic — I  am  but  a  savant  and  an 
observer.  You  will,  therefore,  not  find  here  the  name 
of  a  man  nor  the  title  of  a  newspaper. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  formal  republican. 
This  individual  belongs  to  a  chapel  of  some  kind. 
Often  he  is  Protestant  with  Puritanic  leanings.  He 
aims  at  the  Academy,  prides  himself  on  his  beautiful 
language  and  happy  equilibrium.  He  is  the  liberal, 
with  the  balance  of  a  clever  man,  who  has  sworn  never 
to  swerve  to  the  right  nor  to  the  left.  When  he  has 
made  up  his  mind  he  is  generally  hard-headed  and  nar- 
row-minded ;  he  is  then  a  formalist,  a  bourgeois  who 
fears  the  people  and  who  despairs  of  a  monarchy  of  its 
making.  But  when  he  has  not  made  up  his  mind,  he 
shows  a  singularly  supple  intelligence.  His  gravity, 
his  big  words,  his  correct  attitude,  his  phraseology  of 
the  serious  and  bashful  man  hide  the  most  amiable  of 
skepticisms.  In  fact,  he  has  but  his  ambition.  He 
has  said  to  himself,  as  a  practical  man,  that  the  surest 
means  of  governing  is  to  frighten  no  one  and  to  tire 
everybody.  He  has  also  created  journals  in  which  the 
gray  in  literature  and  politics  flourish — sheets  of  thick 
paper  which  never  sacrifice  anything  to  wit,  which 
cram  their  readers  with  very  indigestible  articles.  All 
this  is  sufficient  in  order  to  have  weight.  It  is  only  a 
question  of  putting  a  white  cravat  on  with  common 
clothes.  A  whole  public  has  been  formed  around 
this  majestic  emptiness,  this  liberalism  living  on  aca- 
demic formulas.  The  exact  word  is  never  used  there. 
It  is  a  bourgeois  salon,  with  its  prejudices,  its  stiff  at- 
titudes, its  vague  religiousness,  its  importance,  and  its 
ennui.  Its  object  is  the  solemn  cultivation  of  the 
middle  classes.     From  this  point  start  its  dogmas,  its 


REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      383 

reassuring  cut  and  dried  opinions,  its  continual  alle- 
viations, its  declarations  as  experts.  I  propose  to 
give  these  formal  republicans  the  name  of  Protestant 
Jesuits.  They  have  dreamed  of  power  from  the  first 
day,  and  their  long  campaign  has  been  but  a  slow  march 
toward  coveted  situations.  They  are  men  of  expedi- 
ency. Be  certain  they  will  accept  nothing  from  the 
republic  but  etiquette.  All  scientific  formula  is  repug- 
nant to  them. 

I  will  now  pass  to  the  romantic  republican.  This 
one,  though  less  dangerous,  is  much  droller.  He 
unhappily  holds  a  big  place  in  the  tumult  of  the  day. 
This  entry  of  romanticism  into  politics  is  a  whole  his- 
tory in  itself.  I  have  already  recounted  it  elsewhere. 
It  so  happened  that  certain  dramatists  in  1830,  finding 
their  receipts  in  the  theater  growing  less  and  less,  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  throwing  themselves  into  journalism, 
with  their  rubbish  and  their  plumes.  This  happened 
toward  the  end  of  the  empire,  at  the  moment  that  the 
public  was  devouring  the  newspapers  of  the  opposi- 
tion. At  this  time  of  passionate  attacks  against  the 
government  romanticism  made  great  headway  in  the 
press.  The  tirades  at  which  they  had  commenced  to 
smile  on  the  boards  seemed  quite  new  printed  at  the 
head  of  a  newspaper.  It  was  Hernani  who  demanded 
liberty,  proudly  lifting  his  brick-colored  mantle  with 
the  end  of  his  sword  ;  it  was  D'Artagnan,  it  was  Bicridan, 
wearing  their  broad-brimmed  felts  with  long,  sweeping 
plumes,  who  hailed  the  people  "  sovereign"  and  styled 
them  lords.  No  carnival  has  ever  been  more  quickly 
successful.  The  people  unquestionably  did  not  recog- 
nize their  favorite  heroes  of  "  La  Tour  de  Nesle  "  and 
"  Les    Trois    Mousquetaires " ;     they    were    tired    of 


384     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

applauding  them  at  the  Ambigu  and  the  Porte  Saint 
Martin ;  but  all  their  old-time  tenderness  awakened 
again ;  they  were  touched  to  the  heart,  and  cried  out 
willingly,  "  Bravo,  Melingue  !  "  From  that  time  roman- 
ticism had  full  sway  in  the  market,  and  a  very  formida- 
ble sway  it  was.  The  receipts  were  such  that  the  roman- 
tic republicans,  satisfied  with  this  fortune  which  had 
come  to  them  so  late,  were  content  to  coin  money  with 
their  plumed  phrases  without  caring  to  become  deputies 
and  ambassadors  like  so  many  others.  The  process 
offered  great  simplicity ;  it  was  merely  a  question  of 
transporting  into  the  discussion  of  public  affairs  the 
"tra-la-la"  of  great,  empty  phrases,  the  juggling  of 
antitheses,  the  disheveled  airs  of  the  imagination  let 
loose  through  all  manner  of  fantasies.  In  a  word,  it 
was  necessary  to  be  poetical  at  any  odds ;  to  mingle 
"  Triboulet  "  with  "  Ruy  Bias  "  ;  to  take  a  ride  on  Pega- 
sus above  the  astonished  lands.  You  comprehend  what 
politics  has  become,  this  science  of  facts  and  men, 
in  passing  through  the  romantic  formula.  At  once 
all  serious  basis  of  observation  has  disappeared,  rhet- 
oric has  replaced  analysis,  words  have  devoured  ideas. 
The  romanticists  have  set  out  at  a  galloping  pace  after 
humanitarian  dreams,  the  universal  fraternity  of  nations, 
the  approaching  end  of  conflicts  and  wars,  equality 
and  liberty  shining  upon  the  world  like  suns.  On 
the  other  side,  as  they  coined  money  by  the  people, 
they  knelt  in  adoration  before  them,  and  there  was  no 
blarney  with  which  they  did  not  delude  them  ;  the 
people  have  become  an  emperor,  a  Pope,  a  god 
inclosed  in  a  triple  tabernacle,  and  whom  it  was  neces- 
sary to  adore  on  one's  knees  under  pain  of  the  greatest 
punishments.      The    workmen    would   certainly  have 


REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.     385 

shown  little  gratitude  had  they  refused  to  pay  two 
cents  for  all  this  adulation.  But  what  sorry  masquer- 
ading, what  shameless  money-making.  The  romantic 
republicans  ridiculed  good  sense,  modern  science,  exact 
analysis,  the  experimental  method,  those  powerful 
tools  which  are  at  this  moment  reforging  society. 
They  were  like  tight-rope  dancers,  covered  with 
spangles  and  tinsel,  executing  marvelous  bounds  into 
the  ideal  for  the  greater  amusement  of  the  crowd. 

Alongside  of  the  romantic  republicans  there  are  the 
fanatical  republicans,  those  who  have  put  on  Robes- 
pierre's frock  coat  or  worn  Marat's  boots.  These  are 
shut  up  in  an  historical  figure  and  cannot  emerge  from 
it — strange  brains  who  wish  to  cut  out  the  future  by 
the  past,  without  understanding  that  each  evolution 
comes  at  its  time,  and  that  history  never  repeats 
itself.  Further  than  this,  I  say  again,  it  would  be  a 
difficult  task  clearly  to  classify  the  republicans,  the 
groups  are  so  numerous,  from  the  impatient  ones  of  the 
extreme  Left,  to  those  satisfied  with  "  opportunism." 
There  are  among  them  some  able  men ;  men  of  the 
past,  and  men  of  the  future  a  whole  crowd.  I  shall 
content  myself  with  having  touched  upon  the  formal 
republicans,  the  romantic  republicans,  and  the  fanat- 
ical republicans.  These  are  the  most  powerful  groups, 
who  in  every  case  have  the  most  widely  circulated 
newspapers,  and,  consequently,  have  the  most  influ- 
ence. My  opinion,  in  all  simplicity,  is  that  they  would 
ruin  the  republic  to-morrow  if  they  were  masters. 
The  formal  republicans  would  bring  us  back  to  a  con- 
stitutional monarchy,  while  we  should  have  a  dictator 
inside  of  six  months  with  the  romantic  republicans 
and  with  the  fanatical  republicans.     This  follows  math- 


386     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

ematically.     Whoever  does  not  walk  with  truth  loses 
his  way  and  goes  of  necessity  toward  error. 

There  exists,  then,  in  my  eyes,  but  one  republican 
who  is  the  real  worker  at  the  present  hour,  and  that 
is  the  scientific  or  naturalistic  republican.  If  I  had 
not  promised  to  mention  no  names  I  could  make  my 
meaning  clearer  by  quoting  examples.  The  natural- 
istic republican,  who  is  represented  by  some  very  pow- 
erful individualities,  bases  himself,  above  all,  upon 
analysis  and  experiment.  He  does  the  same  work  in 
politics  that  our  savants  have  done  in  chemistry  and 
medicine,  and  that  our  writers  are  in  the  way  of  ac- 
complishing in  the  novel,  in  criticism,  and  in  history. 
This  is  a  return  to  man  and  to  nature  :  to  nature  con- 
sidered in  its  action,  to  man  considered  in  his  needs 
and  his  instincts.  The  naturalistic  republican  takes 
into  consideration  the  surroundings  and  the  circum- 
stances. He  does  not  work  on  a  nation  as  in  clay, 
because  he  knows  that  a  nation  has  its  own  life  and  a 
reason  for  existing,  the  mechanism  of  which  should  be 
studied  before  trying  to  manipulate  it.  Social  formu- 
las, like  mathematical  ones,  possess  a  certain  rigidity, 
so  that  a  nation  cannot  be  bent  from  one  day  to  the 
next ;  and  political  science,  such  as  it  exists  to-day, 
consists  simply  of  the  attempt  to  lead  a  country  by 
the  shortest  and  most  practical  paths  to  the  form  of 
government  toward  which  it  is  moved  by  its  natural 
impulse,  aided  by  the  force  of  the  conditions.  The 
naturalistic  republican  has  not  the  stiff  hypocrisies  of 
the  formal  republican  :  he  does  not  use  one  class  for  the 
benefit  of  another,  but  says  what  he  ought  to  say,  at 
the  risk  of  scandalizing  the  bourgeoisie.  The  natural- 
istic republican   understands  nothing  of  the  romantic 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE   IN  LITERATURE.      387 

republican's  gibberish,  whose  false  rhetoric  and  ideal 
of  gilded  pasteboard  make  him  shrug  his  shoulders. 
For  him  all  these  comedians  are  charlatans,  whether 
they  wear  a  white  cravat,  or  whether  they  are  decked 
out  in  the  leather  jerkin  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Even  admitting  that  there  are  some  sincere  men 
amid  the  formal  and  romantic  republicans,  these  are 
exhausting  their  strength  in  trying  to  construct  a  monu- 
ment in  the  air,  which  has  no  foundations ;  they  are 
exciting  themselves  about  delusions,  they  are  apply- 
ing false  formulas  to  men  who  do  not  exist,  to  pure 
abstractions  conceived  about  an  ideal ;  thus  it  is  not 
astonishing  that  their  work  crumbles,  and  that  after 
each  of  their  attempts  the  country  has  need  of  a  dic- 
tator or  a  king  to  sweep  the  soil  clear  of  the  rubbish 
which  they  have  heaped  upon  it.  On  the  contrary, 
the  naturalistic  republican  does  not  build  until  he  has 
studied  and  sounded  the  ground  ;  he  knows  that  each 
stone  he  places  will  be  solid,  because  it  fits  on  all  sides, 
and  because  it  is  placed  just  where  the  nature  of  the 
ground  and  the  construction  of  the  building  demand 
that  it  should  be.  He  is  a  man  of  facts,  and  he  will 
make  a  republic,  not  a  Protestant  temple,  not  a  Gothic 
church,  not  a  prison  opening  upon  a  place  of  execu- 
tion, but  a  large  and  beautiful  mansion,  where  all 
classes  may  be  accommodated,  full  of  air  and  sunlight, 
and  so  appropriate  to  the  tastes  and  wants  of  its 
inhabitants  that  they  will  remain  there  forever. 

This  is  but  an  essay  indicating  the  broad  outlines. 
But  it  is  evident  that  the  history  of  this  century  in 
general,  and  the  events  of  the  last  eight  years  in  par- 
ticular, lead  us  logically  to  this  scientific  solution. 
The  naturalistic  movement  cannot  put  in  motion  all 


388     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

human  intelligence  without  communicating  itself  to 
political  science.  It  has  made  over  history,  criticism, 
the  novel,  and  the  theater ;  it  ought  to  take  a  decisive 
start  in  f>olitics,  which  is  but  made  of  history  and 
living  criticism.  Politics,  purged  of  the  doctrines  of 
empirical  thinkers  and  the  idealism  of  the  poets,  based 
on  analysis  and  experiment,  employing  its  method  as 
a  tool,  taking  for  goal  the  normal  development  of  a 
nation  studied  in  its  surroundings  and  its  being,  can 
alone  found  in  France  a  lasting  republic.  This  ought 
to  be  boldly  said :  there  are  no  principles,  there  are  but 
laws.  There  simply  exist  organized  beings  living  on 
the  earth  in  certain  conditions.  The  republic  will 
never  come  to  be  in  a  country  until  it  becomes  the 
condition  even  of  the  existence  of  that  country.  Apart 
from  this  fact,  all  attempts  are  but  temporary  and 
artificial  arrangements,  which  will  fall  through  and 
cause  catastrophes. 


II. 

LET  us  consider  now  the  attitude  in  which  the  dif- 
ferent groups  of  the  repubHcan  party  stand 
toward  contemporary  Hterature. 

For  many  years  a  great  many  foreigners  have  been 
coming  to  see  me,  Russians  and  ItaHans  especially. 
I  like  to  listen  to  them,  because  they  present  me  with 
such  original  judgments  upon  us,  and  which  nearly 
always  strike  me  forcibly.  They  always  express  the 
greatest  surprise  at  learning  that  the  republican  party 
shows  itself  so  hostile  to  the  new  developments  in  lit- 
erature, attacking  writers  who  have  freed  themselves 
from  tradition  and  who  advance  forward,  and  angrily 
discussing  works  conceived  in  an  analytical  and  experi- 
mental spirit.  The  naturalistic  novelists,  more  than 
any  others,  are  maltreated  with  a  veritable  fury  by  the 
most  influential  newspapers  of  the  party.  And  the 
foreigners  do  not  understand  it.  Why  is  it?  Why 
this  strange  contradiction,  of  new  political  men  so  set 
against  the  new  writers?  ,Why  desire  liberty  in  mat- 
ters of  government  and  deny  to  writers  the  privilege 
of  enlarging  their  horizon  ?  I  have  tried  several  times 
to  explain  to  my  visitors  so  singular  an  anomaly.  But 
they  only  half  understood  me,  so  that  to  them  the  situ- 
ation remained  strange.  To-day  I  wish  to  get  at  the 
real  heart  of  the  business. 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  many  characteristic  prec- 
edents.    During  the  first  Revolution,  from  1789  to  the 

389 


390     REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LirERATURE. 

empire,  the  literature  of  the  period  remained  classic ; 
not  one  effort  was  made  to  break  the  old  mold  ;  on 
the  contrary,  there  was  a  more  and  more  insipid  dilution 
of  the  old  formula  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Is  it 
not  curious  ?  Here  are  men  who  abolish  the  king, 
suppress  God,  and  who  make  a  clean  sweep  with  the 
whole  ancient  society,  and  yet  who  retain  the  literature 
of  a  past  which  they  wish  to  efface  from  history  ;  they 
do  not  seem  to  suspect  for  one  moment  that  a  litera- 
ture is  the  immediate  expression  of  a  society. 

It  was  much  later  that  the  reaction  of  the  Revolu- 
tion made  itself  felt  in  letters.  After  the  empire  and 
during  the  Restoration  the  romantic  insurrection  burst 
forth  like  a  literary  1793.  And  what  see  you  then? 
You  see  the  republicans,  or  rather  the  liberals — those 
who  claimed  the  conquests  of  the  Revolution,  those  who 
fought  the  battles  of  1830  in  the  name  of  menaced 
liberty — you  see  them  defend  classical  literature  and 
attack  the  triumphant  romanticism,  Victor  Hugo's 
dramas  and  novels,  furiously.  It  is  sufficient  to 
read  an  old  file  of  Le  National  to  be  convinced  on 
this  subject.  Such  are  the  facts.  In  France,  every 
time  that  politicians  have  desired  the  emancipation  of 
the  nation,  they  have  commenced  by  defying  the  writ- 
ers and  by  dreaming  of  shutting  them  up  in  some  old 
formula  as  in  a  prison.  They  break  a  government,  but 
they  intend  to  regulate  written  thought.  Their  audac- 
ity stopped  at  the  more  or  less  violent  transformation 
of  power ;  they  did  not  admit  that  you  could  trans- 
form letters.  They  precipitate  the  political  evolution, 
and  they  strangely  wish  to  deny  the  literary  evolution. 
However,  I  repeat,  the  two  hold  together,  one  can- 
not be  affected  without  the  other,  hand  in  hand  they 


REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE   IN  LITERATURE.      39 1 

accomplish  the  same  good.  What  is  there,  then,  at 
the  bottom  of  this  attitude  of  the  republican  party  ? 

Remark,  however,  that  the  law  appears  constant.  In 
1830  the  liberals  refused  romanticism;  to-day  the 
republicans  refuse  naturalism.  You  could  almost 
think  there  was  a  fixed  element  in  this  bad  feeling,  in 
this  face  to  face  defiance  of  these  new  literary  formulas. 
Evidently  this  fixed  element  exists,  and  I  shall  try 
shortly  to  determine  it.  But  I  think  the  accidental 
causes,  the  causes  of  the  moment,  are  more  numerous 
and  powerful.  I  will  leave  the  past  and  I  will  only 
study  the  present  hour,  examining  in  what  manner  the 
different  republican  groups,  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  behave  toward  naturalism. 

First  let  us  speak  of  the  formal  republicans.  These, 
as  I  have  already  said,  remained  classicists.  One  of 
them,  a  man  of  weight,  a  journalist  whose  solemn  car- 
riage has  brought  him  to  the  senate,  wrote,  a  short 
time  ago,  that  Balzac  and  Stendhal  were  equivocal 
writers,  unworthy  of  appearing  in  an  honest  man's 
library.  Another,  an  old  professor,  who  has  been  made 
a  high  dignitary,  formerly  distributed  criticisms  and 
blows  from  the  ruler  in  a  review  with  the  pallid  rage 
of  an  impotent  schoolmaster.  I  could  quote  twenty  such 
examples.  They  are  a  group  of  puritanical  Jesuits,  but- 
toned up  in  their  cassocks,  afraid  of  words,  trembling 
before  actual  life,  wishing  to  reduce  the  vast  movement 
of  modern  inquiry  to  the  narrow  p-.th  of  moral  and 
patriotic  readings.  I  know  that  practical  Catholics  do 
not  like  us,  for  we  carry  the  hatchet  into  their  beliefs  ; 
I  know  that  the  old  world  revolts  against  the  cruelty  of 
our  analysis,  which  reduces  it  to  dust ;  but  these  men 
who  assert  they  accept  the  spirit  of  the  age,  these  men 


392      REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

whose  speeches  claim  liberty  of  thought,  why  are  they 
against  us  when  we  work  more  actively  than  they  do  for 
the  society  of  to-morrow  ?  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
hypocrisy  in  their  case.  Our  work  is  done  too  much  in 
the  daylight ;  we  tell  too  many  truths  ;  we  trouble  them 
by  our  frankness.  They  have  been  in  the  opposition 
and  seen  humanity  in  all  its  ugliness ;  but  if  they  get 
into  power  humanity  becomes  beautiful.  This  is 
enough ;  they  govern ;  it  is  necessary  to  throw  a  veil  over 
human  nature.  The  truth  is,  an  abyss  separates  them 
from  us.  As  men  of  equilibrium  or  men  of  doctrine, 
prejudiced  bourgeois  or  clowns  playing  the  comedy  of 
virtue,  skillful  men,  who  wish  to  increase  the  circulation 
by  publishing  sheets  for  the  family,  a  mixture  of 
academic  minds  and  pedagogic  brains,  they  all  detest 
by  instinct  or  from  interest  the  attractive  freedom  of 
letters,  the  living  style  and  highly  colored  images,  the 
audacities  of  analysis,  the  powerful  assertion  of  the  per- 
sonality of  the  writer.  As  a  great  stylist  of  our  days 
often  repeats,  they  have  la  haine  de  la  litt^ratiire ; 
hatred  which  causes  them  to  prance  before  a  poet's 
phrase  as  a  horse  balks  before  an  object  which  he  is 
afraid  of. 

With  the  romantic  republicans  the  misunderstanding 
became  simply  a  quarrel  of  school  against  school.  Nat- 
urally the  romanticists,  who  have  thrown  themselves 
into  the  republic  to  protect  their  receipts,  show  them- 
selves very  uneasy  at  the  movement  which  operates 
with  the  public  in  favor  of  the  naturalistic  writers.  This 
growing  love  for  reality,  this  curiosity  which  attaches 
itself  to  all  the  work  of  contemporary  analysis,  makes 
them  think,  and  with  reason,  that  the  crowd  is  turning 
from  them  and  their  works.     What  will  become  of  them 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUEI^CE  IN  LITERATURE.     393 

if  the  cuirasses  and  the  plumes  are  no  longer  the  fashion; 
if  their  tirades  no  longer  suffice ;  if  their  readers  demand 
clear  and  scientific  ideas,  real  characters  under  the  dra- 
peries of  style  ?  Not  only  their  novels  and  their  dramas 
are  attacked,  but  they  even  begin  to  smile  at  their  poli- 
tics ;  they  are  on  the  point  of  no  longer  taking  them 
seriously.  Then,  menaced  in  their  pride  and  in  their 
purse,  they  become  angry,  they  affect  to  be  full  of  dis- 
dain and  disgust  for  the  new  writers.  Instead  of  admit- 
ting that  the  romantic  evolution  had  been  but  the  period 
of  the  first  impulse  of  the  great  naturalistic  movement, 
they  denied  this ;  they  wished  to  stop  French  letters 
with  the  productions  of  1830.  The  necessity  of  shut- 
ting themselves  up  in  an  epoch,  of  embodying  a  litera- 
ture in  a  formula,  or  in  one  single  man,  of  pretending 
that  now  the  future  was  fixed  is  very  characteristic ; 
and  you  can  hardly  quote  a  more  striking  example  of 
this  contradiction  on  the  part  of  men  who  admit  all 
the  progress  in  politics,  and  who  absolutely  refuse  to 
letters  the  right  to  march  onward  or  be  renovated.  But 
there  is  still  another  and  graver  matter  in  the  hostile 
attitude  of  the  romantic  republicans  against  the  natu- 
ralistic writers.  They  try  to  belittle  them  by  throwing 
mud  in  their  faces,  styling  them  disgusting  and 
obscene  novelists.  Understand  by  this  that  these 
writers  studied  man  unclothed,  dissected  and  analyzed 
him  entirely,  working  as  savants  in  this  contemporary 
inquiry.  In  the  main,  under  the  gross  words  by  which 
their  defamers  tried  to  soil  them,  they  are  simply  work- 
ers in  the  truth,  while  the  romanticists  are  workmen  in 
the  ideal.  There  is  in  all  this  only  a  difference  of  method 
and  literary  philosophy,  but  it  is  all-important.  The 
romanticists  believe  it  is  right  to  embellish  and  arrange 


394     REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE, 

human  data  for  the  pleasure  and  the  profit  of  the 
nation ;  we  are  convinced,  we  others,  that  it  is  better 
to  give  human  data  such  as  they  are,  so  that  one  can 
seize  the  nation  by  its  vitals,  and  thus  to  leave  behind 
us  works  which  will  remain  eternal.  Evidently  any 
understanding  is  impossible ;  these  must  kill  those.  I 
am  very  tranquil  as  to  the  issue  of  the  quarrel.  I  only 
make  the  remark  that  it  will  be  us,  the  savants,  who 
will  establish  the  republic  on  logical  foundations,  while 
the  romanticists  will  have  compromised  it  by  dragging 
it  into  I  cannot  tell  what  humanitarian  carnival. 

Finally,  the  fanatical  republicans,  and  I  designate 
under  this  heading  those  burning  and  -narrow  brains 
who  look  upon  the  republic  as  a  state  by  divine  right 
which  one  is  bound  to  impose  upon  men — these  fanatics 
treat  letters  in  general  with  a  certain  amount  of  con- 
tempt. They  are  not  far  from  being  for  them  a  useless 
luxury.  They  refuse  them  an  important  role  in  social 
mechanism,  and  when  they  do  accept  them  they  try 
to  make  them  bow  to  a  common  rule  and  to  assign  to 
them  definite  limits  by  law.  Proudhon,  one  of  the  most 
powerful  brains  of  our  epoch,  could  not  withstand  wish- 
ing to  treat  art  as  a  part  of  political  economy.  He 
dreamed  of  casting  down  high  personalities ;  he  longed 
for  a  people  of  draughtsmen,  well  disposed  and  learned, 
in  order  to  hold  with  credit  the  place  occupied  by  that 
rebel  of  genius  who  was  named  Delacroix.  You  can 
easily  understand  that  these  republicans,  so  contemp- 
tuous toward  letters,  showed  themselves  but  little  dis- 
posed to  welcome  new  literary  formulas.  At  bottom 
they  had,  in  fact,  a  historical  ideal  for  the  republic,  the 
black  broth  of  Sparta,  the  patriotic  stiffness  of  Brutus, 
the  deadly  spite  of  Marat ;  and  this  republic,  which  they 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      395 

wished  for,  black  and  somber,  leveled  and  authorita- 
tive, this  republic  of  purely  classical  imagination,  impos- 
sible as  an  actual  condition  in  our  modern  times,  would 
fit  in  very  badly  with  a  literature  of  analysis  and 
observation,  needing  an  absolute  liberty  in  which  to 
develop  itself.  These  men  we  still  wound,  because  we 
are  not  in  the  nightmare  they  keep  up  even  when 
awake ;  because  we  refuse  to  tell  ourselves  off,  to  take 
our  place  in  the  ranks,  to  obey  the  words  of  command, 
to  consider  man  a  stick  whom  you  can  plant  where  you 
please,  and  who  ought  to  grow  wherever  he  is  placed. 
They  are  in  favor  of  a  ready-made  formula ;  we  are  for  a 
continuous  inquiry  and  for  due  respect  for  human  data. 
I  have  said  that  outside  of  the  accidental  causes 
there  are  general  causes  that  explain  the  visible  hostil- 
ity of  the  republican  party  to  the  new  literary  formula. 
These  causes  are  working  under  all  governments.  As 
soon  as  the  republicans  came  into  power  they  did  not 
escape  that  common  law  which  brings  it  about  that  all 
men,  when  masters,  begin  to  tremble  before  written 
thought.  When  one  is  in  the  opposition  one  cries  out 
enthusiastically  for  the  liberty  of  the  press,  and  death 
to  all  censorship  ;  but  if,  the  next  day,  a  revolution 
seats  our  man  in  a  minister's  armchair,  he  commences 
by  doubling  the  number  of  censors  and  by  wishing  to 
regulate  matters,  even  up  to  divers  facts  in  the  news- 
papers. Certainly  I  well  know  there  is  no  ephemeral 
minister  who  does  not  burn  with  the  zeal  of  bringing 
back  in  his  own  time  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  But  this 
is  merely  an  air  of  music  which  he  plays  at  the  fete  of 
his  accession  to  power ;  arts  and  letters  in  reality  count 
for  nothing ;  politics  possesses  him  entirely.  Then,  if 
he  does  worry  himself  over  the  desire  to  make  his  ad- 


3  96     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

ministration  speak,  if  he  really  concerns  himself  about 
writers  and  artists,  it  is  a  great  calamity ;  he  meddles 
with  questions  which  he  knows  nothing  of ;  he  astonishes 
his  deputies  by  extraordinary  actions;  he  distributes 
rewards  and  prizes  to  such  mediocrities  that  even  the 
crowd  finally  shrugs  its  shoulders.  This  is  where  every 
man  ends  who  comes  into  power,  however  good  his 
intentions  at  the  start ;  he  fatally  encourages  the  men 
of  no  ability,  while  he  leaves  the  strong  on  one  side 
when  he  does  not  persecute  them.  There  may  be  a 
state  reason  in  all  this.  Governments  are  suspicious 
of  literature,  because  it  is  a  force  which  always  escapes 
them.  A  great  artist,  a  great  genius  hampers  them^ 
frightens  them  from  the  moment  that  they  feel  that  he 
stands  outside  their  discipline  armed  with  a  powerful 
tool.  If  they  accept  a  novel,  a  picture,  a  drama  as  an 
honest  recreation,  they  tremble  when  this  ceases  to  be 
pleasure  permitted  in  the  family,  when  the  novelist,  the 
painter,  the  dramatist  brings  forth  an  original  work, 
expresses  a  truth  which  stirs  up  people.  Always  this 
"hatred  for  literature."  You  must  not  stand  alone 
and  be  strong ;  you  must  not  write  in  a  living  style 
which  has  a  sound,  a  color,  and  a  perfume ;  you  must 
not,  above  all  else,  bring  about  a  new  evolution ;  if  you 
do  you  disquiet  the  government  and  you  make  the 
ministers  in  their  cabinets  indignant.  Kingdoms, 
empires,  republics,  all  governments,  even  those  who 
pride  themselves  upon  protecting  letters,  have  repulsed 
original  writers  and  innovators.  I  speak  more  espe- 
cially of  modern  times,  in  which  written  thought  has 
become  a  redoubtable  weapon. 

Such  is  the  situation,  and  I  will  make  a  rhum^  of  it. 
The  naturalistic  writers  have  the  republic  against  them 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE   IN  LITERATURE.      397 

because  the  republic  is  to-day  an  actual  government, 
and  because  from  the  moment  that  it  became  so  it  has 
been  attacked  by  that  particular  disease  which  I  have 
called  "  hatred  for  literature."  Further  opposing  them 
are  the  formal  republicans,  the  romantic  republicans, 
and  the  fanatical  republicans — in  a  word,  the  most 
powerful  groups  of  the  party  whom  they  hamper  in  their 
hypocrisy,  their  interests,  or  their  beliefs.  Is  it  neces- 
sary for  me  to  say  more  ?  Will  strangers,  ignorant  of  the 
under  side  of  the  cards  and  not  being  able  to  see  aught 
but  the  exterior  lines,  will  they  still  be  astonished  at  find- 
ing that  the  republican  party  "  cut  up  "  so  furiously  the 
young  writers  who  have  grown  up  with  it  and  whb  are 
doing  a  work  similar  to  its  own  ?  I  could  have  stated 
the  facts  more  precisely,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  have 
pointed  out  the  general  reasons.  We  really  only  have 
the  naturalistic  republicans  with  us.  Those  who  desire 
the  republic  only  through  science,  through  the  experi- 
mental method,  know  well  that  we  are  walking  with 
them.  These  are  the  superior  men  of  the  age  ;  natu- 
rally they  are  not  numerous,  but  they  command  or  they 
will  command  later ;  and  if  they  have  to  employ  inferior 
soldiers  from  that  want  of  men  which  is  common  in  all 
parties,  they  at  least  regret  the  foolish  acts  committed  ; 
they  hope  to  make  more  truth  and  more  force  enter 
into  the  government  each  day. 

I  will  quote  here  a  very  typical  example,  which  will 
show  the  strange  intelligence  of  certain  republicans. 
The  most  awful  reproach  which  they  address  to  natu- 
ralistic literature  is  that  of  being  a  literature  of  facts, 
consequently  a  Bonapartist  literature.  This  is  a  little 
vague.  I  will  try  to  explain  it.  For  the  republicans  in 
question  the  empire  based  itself  on  facts,  while  the 


39^     REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

republic  bases  itself  on  a  principle ;  thus  a  literature 
which  admits  only  facts,  which  represses  the  absolute,  is 
a  Bonapartist  literature.  Must  we  laugh  ?  Or  must  we 
get  angry  ?  On  reflecting  upon  this  I  find  the  matter  a 
very  grave  one,  for  beneath  this  astonishing  accusation 
there  is  a  question  of  the  existence  even  of  the  republic. 

There  exist  a  great  many  republicans  who  declare 
positively  that  the  republic  is  absolute.  The  fanatical 
republicans  make  this  assertion  with  the  force  of  an 
axiom.  The  romantic  republicans  push  right  up  to  the 
ideal,  waving  their  plumes,  and  make  the  republic  an 
apotheosis  of  paradise,  God  the  Father  bonneted  with 
a  Phrygian  helmet,  radiating  in  a  sun.  In  my  opinion 
nothing  is  more  childish  or  more  dangerous.  I  am  will- 
ing that  there  should  be  principles,  as  there  is  a  police 
force  to  tranquilize  honest  people.  However,  the  abso- 
lute is  simply  a  philosophical  amusement,  upon  which 
you  can  reason  between  the  fruit  and  the  cheese.  As 
to  taking  it  for  a  basis  for  human  affairs,  that  is  to  try 
to  build  upon  nothingness,  that  is  to  raise  a  building 
which  will  certainly  crumble  at  the  least  breath.  As  I 
have  explained,  you  enter  into  the  relative  as  soon  as 
man  appears  with  his  multitude  of  wants.  From  that 
moment  facts  alone  govern.  It  is  imbecile  to  think  that 
the  empire  is  crushed  when  you  style  it  a  government 
based  upon  accomplished  facts.  Does  there  exist  a 
government  outside  of  facts?  Is  not  the  republic  of 
to-day  a  government  based  upon  accomplished  facts? 
Is  it  not  precisely  facts  which  founded  it  in  a  positive 
manner? 

Let  us  take  the  second  empire.  We  can  speak  the 
truth  out  aloud  to-day.  The  second  empire  was 
because  the  republic  had  wearied  France.     It  held  its 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      399 

own  course  without  regard  to  facts ;  it  did  not  bother 
itself  to  respond  to  a  want ;  it  lost  itself  in  empty  decla- 
rations, in  fatiguing  quarrels  in  the  cloudiest  and  least 
practical  theories.  Recall  that  period  of  the  republic 
of  '48.  All  its  attempts  failed,  because  not  one  was 
planted  on  solid  ground ;  it  was  devoured  by  humani- 
tarianism,  by  a  purely  speculative  socialism,  by  a 
romantic  rhetoric  and  the  religiousness  of  theistic  poets. 
It  never  had  a  clear  idea  of  the  France  which  it  wished 
to  govern.  It  pretended  to  experiment  upon  her  as 
upon  a  dead  body.  Indeed,  the  words  were  superb : 
liberty,  equality,  fraternity,  virtue,  honor,  patriotism. 
But  these  were  but  words,  and  acts  were  needed  for  a 
successful  administration.  Imagine  men,  the  best  inten- 
tioned  in  the  world,  very  worthy,  very  good,  who  fall 
upon  a  country  of  which  they  are  totally  ignorant,  and 
of  which  they  wish  to  remain  ignorant,  and  who  have 
conceived  the  strange  notion  of  applying  to  it  a  form  of 
government  which  is  purely  theoretical.  It  will  hap- 
pen of  necessity  that  this  country,  rudely  disarranged 
in  its  daily  life,  will  end  by  rejecting  the  experiment. 
The  dictatorship  is  an  end.  This  was  what  happened 
on  the  2d  of  December.  France  accepted  a  master, 
tired  of  being  turned  round  and  round  for  three  years 
without  being  able  to  find  a  comfortable  position. 

Study  the  eighteen  years  of  the  second  empire,  and 
the  all-powerfulness  of  facts  is  here  again  perceptible. 
Greeted  as  an  experiment,  as  a  relief,  it  killed  itself,  it 
ripened  the  republican  idea,  and  when  it  fell  it  was 
through  facts  that  the  republic  was  definitely  founded. 
I  repeat  these  things  because  you  cannot  dwell  upon 
them  too  often.  If  to-day  the  republic  is  in  existence 
it  is  not  by  means  of  the  absolute,  it  is  not  by  princi- 


400     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

pies,  it  is  only  because  the  facts  willed  it,  made  it  the 
only  government  possible  in  France,  finding  in  it  the 
immediate  and  exact  satisfaction  of  the  needs  of  the 
country.  Without  doubt  right  exists,  but  right  is  only 
a  superior  fact,  which  is,  if  you  so  wish  it,  the  final  fact, 
toward  which  all  nations  tend  across  all  the  interme- 
diary facts.  Admit  that  we  have  attained  the  social 
truth,  the  republic ;  this  republic  is  no  less  based  on 
facts  than  were  all  the  other  governments  which  have 
led  us  to  it.  It  is  absurd  to  try  to  dig  up  the  soil  in 
order  to  plant  in  it  vague  poetical  ideals  or  the  absolute 
philosophy  of  the  sectarians. 

You  can  see  what  weight  the  accusations  of  these 
republicans  carry  who  reproach  us  with  holding  simply 
to  the  facts.  Yes,  facts  alone  hold  for  us  any  scientific 
certainty.  We  believe  only  in  facts,  because  it  is  solely 
upon  facts  that  all  modern  science  has  grown.  The 
human  document  is  our  solid  basis.  We  leave  to 
dreamers  the  ideal,  or  the  absolute,  as  they  prefer  to  call 
it,  having  the  conviction  that  it  is  precisely  this  abso- 
lute which  during  all  these  centuries  has  stopped  and 
led  astray  men  in  their  search  after  truth.  We  expose 
facts,  we  do  not  judge  them,  for  judging  is  not  our 
work,  as  we  are  observers  and  analyzers.  We  have 
exposed  the  facts  of  the  empire,  constituting  ourselves 
the  historians  of  this  historical  period,  as  we  shall 
expose  the  fact  of  the  republic  when  it  shall  enter  into 
our  history,  and  when  it  shall  bring  to  pass  new  man- 
ners. To  style  naturalism  Bonapartist  literature  is  one 
of  those  splendidly  foolish  notions  which  gain  a  lodging 
place  in  the  small  brains  of  the  wordy  gentlemen  of 
the  ideal.  I  affirm,  on  the  contrary,  that  naturalism  is 
a  republican  literature,  if  you   look  upon  the  republic 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE   IN  LITERATURE.      401 

as  the  true  form  of  human  government  par  excellence, 
based  on  universal  inquiry,  determined  by  the  majority 
of  facts,  responding,  in  a  word,  to  the  observed  and 
analyzed  needs  of  a  nation.  All  the  positivist  science 
of  our  century  is  contained  therein. 

At  the  bottom  of  these  literary  quarrels  there  is 
always  a  philosophical  question.  Such  question  may 
remain  vague  ;  we  do  not  touch  upon  it ;  the  writers 
we  have  been  discussing  cannot  often  tell  what  their 
beliefs  are  ;  but  the  antagonism  between  the  schools 
proceeds  no  less  from  the  first  ideas  which  they  form 
of  the  truth.  Thus  romanticism  is  always  deistical. 
Victor  Hugo,  in  whom  it  is  incarnated,  was  brought 
up  a  Catholic,  from  which  religion  he  never  really 
disengaged  himself.  Catholicism  in  him  became 
pantheism,  a  cloudy  and  poetical  deism.  God  always 
appears  at  the  end  of  his  verses,  and  he  not  only 
appears  in  the  light  of  an  article  of  faith,  he  appears, 
moreover,  as  a  literary  necessity.  Let  us  turn  to  nat- 
uralism now,  and  you  will  soon  find  yourself  on  actual 
ground.  This  is  the  literature  of  an  age  of  science, 
which  grows  but  by  facts.  The  ideal  is,  if  not  sup- 
pressed, at  least  set  to  one  side.  The  naturalistic  writer 
believes  that  there  is  no  necessity  to  pronounce  on  the 
question  of  a  God.  He  is  a  creative  force,  and  that  is 
all.  Without  entering  into  a  discussion  as  to  the  sub- 
ject of  this  force,  without  wishing  still  further  to  specify 
it,  he  takes  nature  from  the  beginning  and  analyzes  it. 
His  work  is  the  same  as  that  of  our  chemists  and  our 
physicists.  He  but  gathers  together  and  classifies  the 
data,  without  ever  referring  them  to  a  common  stand- 
ard, without  drawing  conclusions  about  the  ideal.  If 
you  wish  to  call  it  so,  it  is  an  inquiry  about  the  ideal, 


402      REPUBLICS  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

about  God  himself,  a  research  into  what  is — instead  of 
being,  as  in  the  classical  and  romantic  school,  a  disser- 
tation about  a  dogma,  a  rhetorical  amplification  about 
superhuman  axioms. 

Let  the  classicists  and  the  romanticists  and  the  deists 
drag  us  through  the  mud  with  the  fanaticism  of  religious 
passions — I  understand  it  perfectly ;  it  is  because  we 
deny  their  God,  we  empty  their  heaven  in  not  taking 
account  of  their  ideal,  in  not  referring  everything  to 
this  absolute.  Only  what  has  always  surprised  me  is 
that  the  atheists  of  the  republican  party  attack  us  with 
such  violence.  How  is  that  ?  Here  are  men  who  cast 
aside  the  dogmas,  who  deny  God,  and  yet  absolutely  cry 
out  for  an  ideal  in  literature.  They  need  a  trumpery 
heaven,  with  celestial  paintings  and  superhuman  abstrac- 
tions. In  social  science  they  declare  that  we  no  longer 
have  need  of  religions ;  they  go  so  far  as  to  say  that 
religions  lead  to  an  abyss ;  but  as  soon  as  there  is  a 
question  of  letters,  then  they  become  angry  if  one  does 
not  profess  the  religion  of  beauty.  But,  in  truth,  one 
religion  goes  not  without  the  other.  Pretended  beauty, 
absolute  perfection,  traced  according  to  certain  lines,  is 
but  the  material  expression  of  a  divinity  dreamed  of 
and  adored  by  men.  If  you  refuse  this  divinity,  if  you 
have  the  desire  to  bring  the  philosophic  problem  down 
to  the  study  of  the  world  of  nature  and  of  man,  you 
must  accept  our  naturalistic  literature,  which  is  precisely 
the  literary  weapon  of  the  new  scientific  solution 
demanded  by  the  century.  Whoever  is  with  science 
should  be  with  us. 


III. 

I  NOW  reach  the  practical  part.  I  have  only  raised 
these  great  questions  incidentally  in  order  clearly  to 
exhibit  the  actual  literary  evolution.  In  fact,  the  real 
point  of  all  this  is  the  question  of  the  attitude  of  the 
republic  in  regard  to  literature. 

One  of  the  last  Ministers  of  Public  Instruction,  a  very 
clever  man,  seemed  to  be  animated  by  the  most  active 
and  fearless  intentions  when  he  entered  into  power. 
He  had,  moreover,  an  extraordinary  zeal  in  questioning 
all  those  who  came  to  him,  saying :  *'  I  beg  of  you  to 
tell  me  what  I  ought  to  do  ;  point  out  to  me,  enlighten 
me  as  to  what  artists  and  writers  expect  of  the  govern- 
ment." This  bespoke  a  very  great  wish  to  know  our 
real  needs  and  to  satisfy  them.  One  day  I  was  present 
as  the  minister  uttered  these  words  before  a  number  of 
my  colleagues.  He  went  from  one  to  the  other ;  he 
wanted  to  have  the  opinion  of  each  one.  The  first 
asked  for  the  cross  for  men  of  talent  whose  personality 
until  then  had  frightened  those  in  power ;  the  second 
wanted  a  fund  in  order  to  create  a  vast  encyclopedia, 
summing  up  history  and  science ;  the  third  spoke  of 
sending  a  mission  to  certain  convents  in  Lower  Russia, 
where  he  suspected  that  literary  treasures  were  hidden. 
Certainly  all  this  was  excellent,  but  I  must  admit  that 
this  did  not  satisfy  me ;  therefore  when  the  minister 
questioned  me  in  my  turn  I  simply  replied :  '*  Make  us 
free,  and  you  will  be  a  great  minister." 

403 


404     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

Liberty — this  is  all  a  government  can  give  us.  I 
do  not  deny  that  the  role  which  an  intelligent  minister 
is  called  upon  to  fulfill  is  a  hard  one.  He  has  under 
him  schools,  he  conducts  examinations,  distributes 
orders  and  medals,  and  grants  pensions.  According  to 
the  kind  of  man  in  power  the  mediocrities  profit  by  all 
this,  more  or  less,  but  they  are  the  ones,  in  spite  of 
everything,  who  get  the  largest  share.  But  what  true 
benefit  do  art  and  literature  derive  from  this  interven- 
tion, this  protection  by  the  government?  These  are 
but  the  details  of  the  administrative  cookery,  which 
have  no  influence  either  on  the  development  of  minds 
or  on  the  birth  of  great  talents.  A  pension  is  given 
to  someone  who  is  poor ;  he  who  is  agreeable  is  deco- 
rated. Letters  thrive  neither  better  nor  worse.  Again, 
some  painters  or  composers  are  fed.  But  all  this 
decides  in  no  one  way  the  coming  of  a  master  who 
shall  transform  painting  and  music  at  the  given  hour. 
Master  minds  grow  alone  in  the  soil  of  the  nation  with- 
out any  aid  from  the  government,  and  it  often  happens 
that  the  government  rejects  them,  so  that  they  are 
thrown  upon  the  strength  of  their  own  genius.  There- 
fore ministers  cannot  really  have  any  direct  influence. 
Putting  things  at  their  best,  if  they  were  strong  enough 
to  disentangle  themselves  from  all  questions  of  routine 
and  from  all  politics,  if  they  could  sweep  the  mediocres 
out  of  their  pathway,  and  distribute  their  medals  and 
orders,  their  pensions,  their  crosses,  to  really  original 
talent,  they  would  still  be  but  an  enlightened  Maecenas, 
a  friend  to  letters,  who  gave  to  writers  as  much  encour- 
agement as  possible. 

Let  them  listen  to  us !  We  workers  who  do  not  need 
medals,  who  are  not  ambitious  for  crosses,  who  look 


REPUBLIC'S  IMFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      405 

to  the  public  for  recompense,  we  ask  but  one  thing  of 
poHticians — Hberty  !  They  talk  of  leaving  the  nation  to 
itself.  Well !  let  them  first  leave  literature  to  herself ; 
let  them  loose  the  bonds  with  which  the  old  regimes 
have  bound  her.  What  shall  we  say  to  these  repub- 
licans who  desire  entire  liberty,  and  who  do  not  begin 
by  proclaiming  the  liberty  of  written  thought  ?  They 
can  keep  their  flowers,  their  pensions,  and  their  rib- 
bons ;  we  refuse  their  examinations,  we  shrug  our  shoul- 
ders before  their  hothouses,  we  will  not  submit  to  their 
police,  and  we  forbid  their  encouraging  us.  What  we 
want  is  liberty;  we  have  a  right  to  it;  we  demand  it; 
it  is  our  due.  Politicians  keep  our  liberty  from  us ;  let 
them  give  it  back ! 

I  will  quote  three  facts  among  many  others.  Is  it 
not  shameful  that  the  press  should  not  be  entirely  free, 
that  there  still  exists  an  examining  commission,  that 
theatrical  censorship  still  exists  ?  And  here  an  incred- 
ible fact  presents  itself  :  this  censorship  has  just  been 
reconstructed,  and  publicly  put  under  severe  police 
discipline. 

I  cannot  enter  into  an  examination  of  the  actual 
laws  concerning  the  press.  Everyone  knows  how 
restricted  it  is.  Our  French  republic  is  as  hard  on  the 
newspapers  as  the  most,  absolute  monarchies.  As 
long  as  the  republicans  were  not  in  power  they  were 
very  loud  in  their  cries  for  perfect  liberty  ;  we  shall  see 
if  they  will  remember  it.  As  to  this  examining  com- 
mission, it  is  not  only  hurtful  to  liberty,  it  is  foolish. 
Can  you,  for  example,  tell  me  of  a  more  puerile  dis- 
tinction than  that  established  between  the  bookstands 
in  a  railway  station  and  those  in  a  neighboring  street  ? 
Everybody  walks  on  the  sidewalks,  I  have  the  right  to 


4o6     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

spread  my  works  out  there  ;  a  special  traveling  public 
passes  through  the  station,  running  generally  for  its 
trains,  and  I  cannot  sell  my  books  there  unless  a  com- 
mission has  pronounced  them  inoffensive.  Under  the 
empire  this  police  supervision  of  books  and  pamphlets 
was  easily  understood,  putting  obscenity  where  it  was 
not ;  but  in  a  republic  such  a  commission  plays  an  odious 
and  inexplicable  role.  That  is  a  small  question,  you 
say ;  the  question  is  not  a  small  one  for  writers,  who 
miss  just  so  much  advantage.  They  hinder  us  from 
reaching  the  public,  they  cut  off  from  us  a  certain  sale, 
and  all  this  is  a  blow  to  equality  and  right.  Besides,  it 
is  sufficient  that  this  examining  commission  attacks  the 
liberty  of  thinking  and  writing  in  order  to  show  that  the 
republic  should  suppress  it.  And  the  theatrical  censor- 
ship,will  it  be  eternal  ?  Governments  fall,  but  the  censor- 
ship remains.  Here  the  question  enlarges  itself.  I  know 
very  well  that  the  censorship  poses  as  a  good  woman. 
Successful  authors  pretend  that  they  always  manage  in 
the  end  to  conciliate  the  censors ;  they  grant  a  few 
cuttings,  and  afterward  revenge  themselves  by  getting 
off  some  good  joke  upon  them.  A  conciliating  man 
once  said  to  me  :  "  Mention  the  works  of  talent  which 
the  censors  have  prevented  from  being  played."  I 
replied  to  him. :  "  I  cannot  tell  you  the  titles  of  mas- 
terpieces of  which  the  censors  have  deprived  us,  for 
the  very  good  reason  that  these  masterpieces  have 
not  been  written."  The  whole  matter  lies  here.  If 
the  censor  does  not  play  a  very  active  role,  he  does 
harm  as  a  scarecrow ;  he  paralyzes  the  evolution  of 
dramatic  art.  Every  author  knows  the  pieces  which 
may  not  be  written,  those  which  cannot  be  played,  and 
therefore   he   does   not  write   them.     Thus   a  fruitful 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.     40^ 

theme,  political  comedy,  is  forbidden  unless  it  keeps 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  simple  banter.  This  is  so 
much  the  more  grave  for  the  reason  that  in  my  opinion 
all  modern  comedy  is  to  be  found  in  politics.  They 
reproach  our  authors  with  producing  nothing  new,  with 
repeating  the  same  well-known  types,  with  not  knowing 
how  to  bring  forth  modern  laughter,  and  they  forbid 
them  to  touch  upon  the  political  world — this  world, 
noisier  and  noisier  each  day,  which  fills  the  century. 
Comedy  should  live  by  the  everyday  life  around  us. 
With  us,  where  is  the  everyday  life  if  it  is  not  in 
politics?  It  is  only  there  that  our  authors  will  find  the 
characteristics  of  the  epoch,  the  new  forms  of  appetites, 
of  interests,  and  the  ridiculous  things  in  our  French 
society.  In  forbidding  them  this  vast  field,  unknown 
in  the  last  century,  and  which  goes  on  enlarging  every 
day,  you  reduce  them  to  impotence.  It  is  like  order- 
ing a  sculptor  to  carve  you  a  statue,  and  then  refusing 
him  the  block  of  marble  he  needs. 

I  repeat,  let  the  politicians  give  writers  entire  liberty. 
They  cannot  do  more,  and  they  can  do  no  less.  Any- 
thing else  is  a  farce  and  unimportant.  But  I  must  first 
confess  one  thing :  if  the  republic  refuses  us  these  hb- 
erties  we  know  how  to  take  them.  Only  I  think  it 
would  be  more  logical  to  see  literary  liberties  founded 
by  the  republic.  The  republic,  whose  formula  is  scien- 
tific, and  one  which  facts  impose  on  us  to-day,  ought 
to  be  able  to  understand  the  attitude  which  it  should 
hold  before  the  actual  literature — the  attitude  of  a 
power  which  casts  forth  all  state  literature,  which  is 
in  favor  of  no  one  school,  which  simply  desires  that 
the  free  development  of  his  ideas  should  be  assured 
to   each   citizen.      Let  it  not  make  pretense  to  direct 


4o8     REPUBLIC'S  iN-FLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

nor  encourage  nor  recompense  ;  let  it  simply  allow  the 
genial  and  creative  forces  of  the  century  to  do  their 
work.  This  role  seems  very  easy  to  play.  Well,  no 
government  up  to  the  present  day  has  had  enough 
intelligence  to  resign  itself  to  that  role  with  a  good 
grace.  Will  the  republic  show  itself  superior?  We 
shall  know  to-morrow. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  have  really  strong  men  in 
power.  I  cannot  understand  a  republic  governed  by 
inferior  men.  It  seems  illogical.  In  the  government 
of  a  country  by  the  people,  the  men  who  receive 
from  their  fellow-citizens  the  delegation  of  power 
ought  to  be  of  necessity  the  most  honest  and  the  most 
intelligent  of  the  nation.  Otherwise  why  should  they 
be  chosen  ?  If  they  are  mediocrities,  of  doubtful 
honesty,  and  with  no  intellect — if,  in  a  word,  they 
amount  to  nothing — I  demand  that  they  give  me  back 
the  old  regime ;  at  least  the  ministers  under  the  mon- 
archy were  men  of  titles,  belonged  to  an  aristocracy  of 
race,  existed  apart  from  and  above  the  crowd.  The  mis- 
fortune is  that  the  things  of  this  world  do  not  result  in 
the  greatest  honor  and  the  greatest  profit  of  humanity. 
I  find  here  again  this  terrible  human  element,  which 
upsets  the  most  beautiful  theories  based  on  logic  and 
right.  Men  still  battle  for  themselves  more  than  for 
the  truth.  Thus  it  is  that  the  chief  of  a  party  comes 
into  power  with  all  his  followers.  He  is  superior,  but 
the  followers  are  oftenest  complaisant  nonentities,  fools 
whom  you  must  notice,  clowns  who  have  had  the 
strange  good  fortune  of  making  people  look  upon  them 
as  serious,  and  who  become  the  most  insupportable  and 
dangerous  supernumeraries  in  power.  In  fact,  it  often 
happens  that  the  supernumeraries  kill  the  chief  of  the 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      409 

party.  Politics  in  troublous  hours  is  thus  the  refuge 
for  all  disappointed  ambitions,  the  ground  on  which  the 
useless  ones  and  the  impotent  gather  together  to  mount 
to  the  topmost  rung  of  success.  This  explains  the 
immense  number  of  candidates.  Nearly  all  of  them 
have  their  pockets  filled  with  the  manuscripts  of 
dramas  and  novels  which  have  been  refused  twenty 
times  over  by  managers  and  editors  ;  or  again  there  is 
among  them  an  embittered  journalist,  an  unsuccessful 
historian,  a  misunderstood  poet.  I  mean  to  say  that 
they  tried  their  hand  at  letters,  and  even  when  politics 
satisfied  their  ambition,  and  even  when  they  governed, 
they  still  preserved  for  letters  a  tenderness  turned  into 
spite.  They  are  schoolboys  turned  into  teachers. 
Letters  remain  in  their  eyes  an  orgy  of  youth  which 
needs  watching ;  they  speak  of  them  with  dull, 
unquenched  desires  ;  they  are  not  far  from  agreeing 
with  those  bourgeois  who  accuse  writers  of  passing  their 
days  on  divans,  served  by  sultanas,  in  the  midst  of  the 
most  sensuous  debaucheries.  This  explains  their 
wielding  of  the  rod,  their  discourses  on  moraHty,  their 
work  of  regulating  these  letters  as  they  regulate  prosti- 
tution, with  a  police  force  and  arrests.  These  are  the 
ones,  these  terrible  mediocre  men,  these  dry  fruits 
mounted  upon  the  stilts  of  authority,  who  make  all  the 
trouble.  They  are  unhappily  the  parasites  of  the 
republic.  They  are  always  among  the  first  in  revolu- 
tionary times  to  put  themselves  forward,  overrunning 
the  small  and  great  situations.  But  we  must  hope  that 
a  clearing  out  will  soon  take  place.  The  republic  can 
only  live  on  the  condition  that  it  is  the  government  of 
superior  intellects,  the  scientific  formula  of  modern 
society  applied  by  logical  and  free  minds. 


4io     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

It  remains  for  me  to  express  a  wish  which  my  whole 
generation  will  second.  They  beset  us,  they  crush  us 
with  their  politics,  and  decidedly  we  have  had  enough, 
of  it.  I  remember  that  under  the  empire  men  melan- 
cholily  regretted  the  time  of  parliamentary  battles ; 
the  tribune  was  mute,  they  said,  the  press  muzzled, 
and  the  discussion  of  public  affairs  forbidden.  Well, 
to-day  they  have  turned  us  so  completely  around  that 
we  are  beginning  to  regret  the  great  silence  of  the 
empire,  when  politics  were  not  barking  under  our  win- 
dows from  morning  until  night,  and  we  at  least  had 
time  to  think.  Indeed,  we  were  patient.  During  eight 
years  we  were  resigned.  We  understood  that  we 
could  not  come  out  tranquilly  from  a  crisis  such  as  that 
of  1870;  we  said  to  ourselves  that  a  republic  was  not 
an  easy  thing  to  found  in  the  midst  of  the  anger  of  all 
parties,  and  we  must  endure  the  hubbub  of  the  struggle. 
Only,  now  that  the  republic  is  founded,  let  us  have 
peace  ! 

Yes,  we  all  of  us,  men  of  science,  writers,  and  artists, 
we  hold  out  our  hands  toward  the  politicians,  begging 
of  them  not  to  murder  our  ears  any  longer.  The 
republicans  have  conquered,  have  they  not  ?  They  are 
to-day  masters  of  every  situation.  Then,  for  God's 
sake,  let  them  come  to  an  understanding  ;  let  them 
dance  with  the  ladies  instead  of  still  quarreling.  We 
shall  be  very  thankful  to  them. 

Nobody  really  thinks  of  us.  No  one  seems  to  notice 
that  the  present  generation,  men  of  thirty  and  forty 
years,  find  themselves  strangled  between  the  last  con- 
vulsions of  the  empire  and  the  laborious  childhood  of 
the  republic.  Can  a  writer  exist  when  a  politician 
takes  up  all  the  sunshine  ?     Can  one  busy  himself  with 


REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE.      41 1 

books  when  the  newspapers  are  overrun  with  parlia- 
mentary debates,  with  the  longest  and  emptiest  dis- 
cussions? Politics,  and  always  politics,  and  in  such 
enormous  doses  that  even  the  ladies  in  their  salons  talk 
nothing  but  politics.  Here  is  where  we  are :  they  are 
stealing  the  best  part  of  the  century  from  us,  they  are 
wasting  our  best  years ;  to-morrow,  when  they  will  tell 
us,  at  last,  that  our  hour  has  come  and  we  can  speak, 
we  shall  be  very  old,  and  our  youths  will  claim  our 
places.  Thus  it  is  that  generations  have  their  life 
crushed  out  by  revolutions.  Naturally  we  cannot  show 
any  very  great  tenderness  for  politics,  in  the  same  way 
that  the  crushed  man  does  not  smile  at  the  wheel 
which  has  passed  over  his  body. 

Without  doubt  we  must  accept  historical  necessities. 
But  what  puts  us  out  of  humor  is  the  superabundant 
amount  of  space  which  the  mediocre  men,  of  whom  I 
have  already  spoken,  have  captured  during  these  last 
years.  Corneille,  Moliere,  or  Balzac  never  made  such 
a  shameful  hubbub  in  the  newspapers  as  these  imbeciles 
are  making  at  this  moment.  Any  fool,  rising  to  the 
tribune,  takes  upon  himself  an  importance  greater 
than  that  of  a  writer  giving  a  master  work  to  the  public. 
I  know  that  the  noise  does  not  count  for  much,  that 
the  fool  remains  a  fool — even  when  he  is  known  from 
one  end  of  France  to  the  other;  but  how  much 
time  is  lost  reading  these  badly  written  speeches,  what 
a  misapplication  of  truth  and  justice,  what  errors 
put  into  circulation !  It  is  just  because  of  these  easy 
triumphs  in  politics  that  so  many  of  the  unemployed 
and  unsuccessful  throw  themselves  into  it  to  carve 
notoriety  from  it ;  and  it  is  just  on  account  of  the 
victories  of  these  insignificant  fellows,  the  swelling  out 


412     REPUBLIC'S  INFLUENCE  IN  LITERATURE. 

of  certain  absurd  characters,  the  parade  before  an 
astonished  France  of  these  statesmen  of  a  day,  that  we 
look  contemptuously  on  politics,  we  other  workers,  who 
believe  only  in  genius  and  study. 

We  have  had  enough  noise.  Let  us  rejoice  in  our 
republic.  Let  the  workers  and  ambitious  ones,  who 
live  upon  her,  go  to  America  to  seek  a  throne  or  make 
a  fortune.  Let  us  have  music,  let  us  dance,  cultivate 
our  flowers,  and  write  beautiful  works.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  there  is  among  writers  and  artists  a 
defiance  against  the  republic.  Until  now  they  have 
not  felt  that  they  were  beloved  by  the  republicans, 
who  have  always  shown  the  stiffness  of  soldiers 
toward  arts  and  letters.  They  freely  assert  that 
the  republic  is  the  worst  government  for  us,  with 
its  puritanical  airs,  its  need  of  teaching  and  preach- 
ing, its  thesis  of  equality  and  utility.  But  they 
should  add  that  we  have  never  really  seen  the  re- 
publican government  in  working  order,  for  up  to 
the  present  in  France  it  has  not  possessed  the  neces- 
sary stability. 

My  conclusion  shall  be  simple.  Every  definite  and 
durable  government  has  a  literature.  The  republics 
of  1789  and  1848  did  not  have  any,  because  they  passed 
over  the  nation  like  a  hurricane.  To-day  our  republic 
seems  well  founded,  and  from  now  on  she  will  have  her 
literary  expression.  This  expression,  I  think,  will  be 
strongly  naturalistic.  I  mean  by  that  the  analytical 
and  experimental  method,  modern  inquiry  based  on 
facts  and  human  data.  There  must  be  harmony 
between  the  social  movement,  which  is  the  cause,  and 
the  literary  expression,  which  is  the  effect.  If  the 
republic,  blinded  about  itself,  not  understanding  that  it 


REP  UBLIC '  S  I  NFL  UENCE  IN  LI  TERA  TURE.     4 1 3 

exists  solely  by  the  force  of  a  scientific  formula,  turns 
to  persecute  this  scientific  formula  as  exhibited  in 
letters,  that  will  be  a  sign  that  the  republic  is  not  ripe 
for  the  facts,  and  that  it  will  disappear  once  again 
before  a  fact — the  dictatorship. 


THE  END. 


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